The Other Granger
by blddmn
Summary: Hermione's older brother, Martin, and a group of other muggles, are tasked with infiltrating the Magical world to fight the Death Eaters. However once inside they are faced not only with Voldemort's forces, but the crippling corruption that infects the Ministry. How will this affect Hermione's only sibling? and what does the Order have to do with any of it?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **Ok so, just so you know, I am not JKR or any other person with any rights for anything to do with the Harry Potter universe. Like you the reader, I am simply a humble fan who enjoys twisting little elements of the original plot for my own amusement. Suffice to say, I am making absolutely no money what-so-ever from this. All plot devices and non-original characters belong to whoever the hell does own the rights to them, etc. Comprehensive enough? Done.

**Summary (or at least a better summery than you got before checking this out):** This story will be told through several POV characters, such as Hermione's older brother, Martin, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, as a group of muggles infiltrate the magical world to take the fight to the Death Eaters who have been causing so much havoc. However how will the muggles react to the vast levels of corruption and prejudice that infects the wizarding world? And what will they do about it… This will contain some coarse language, violence, adult themes and all sorts of other things that land this an M rating. Enjoy.

**AN:** First off, I am British; so if anyone reading this outside the UK doesn't understand any Briticisms feel free to say so in a review and I'll get back to you on it (alternatively PM me, but as that doesn't make the story look more popular I'd rather you say in a review ;D). Secondly; this is my first foray into the HP fandom so I'm sure any of you more experienced in the field than me will be able to point out any major discrepancies on my part in regards to the characters and such. Finally; I had to use an OC for the main character in this (because none of the canon characters fit the role) so if you feel he is in ANY way unrealistic, say so (again in the form of a review so I look better =D). Oh yeah, and thanks to Arrows the Wolf for all the beta work.

**Chapter One – A Strange World.**

The world was a strange place. No, strange was the wrong way of putting it, strange sounded a little to docile, so to speak, sort of like saying; "that cat looks like its reading a signpost, how strange" when in fact one should be saying, "an elderly woman just showed up at my house today, called my sister a Witch and then turned our chair into a lion that sang the Russian national anthem… WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" so yeah, strange is a bit too meek of a way to describe the state of absolute daftness the world had gotten itself into...

Martin Granger had been 16 for three months when Professor McGonagall had arrived at the Granger's home, during the first week of August. He, like the rest of the family, had threatened the crazily dressed old lady to get out of their house before they called the police. It had only been when she had turned the plush armchair behind Ian Granger (Martin's dad) into a singing lion that they had all finally shut up and listened to what the old bat had to say.

Of course, when a person you have never heard of before, comes into your house, calls your little sister a Witch, turns your chair into a dangerous (possibly man eating) animal, and then has the balls to tell you that said little sister will have to leave home for the majority of the year to attend a school her family couldn't even visit… well suffice to say the Granger family (minus the thoroughly excited little Hermione) were now even more adamant that the woman leave their house.

Unfortunately though, things don't always work out the way you planned them, and for the Grangers that meant losing their daughter to the mysticism of the magical world. By the time September 1st rolled around Hermione had already had several arguments with the rest of the family about the enforced separation, her point that she _needed_ to be trained or else risk being unsafe always won through in the end, and the constant bickering had taken its toll. Hermione had always been good at holding a grudge (at least when her family was concerned) so when she left for Hogwarts she had already decided not to talk about her (in her eyes) magic hating family to all of the other little Witches and Wizards lest they think anything less of her.

Over the first term Hermione did write to the family, telling them about how amazing everything was and lamenting the lack of intelligence and incessant rule breaking displayed by so many of her housemates. Reading between the lines, Martin could tell that she was still angry with them, and was only writing out of a feeling of familial obligation; her sentences were often short and to the point, asking no questions of how the family was doing and instead answering all their questions in a way that didn't warrant further exploration. The other thing Martin could tell from her letters was that she still had no friends. He had always adored his baby sister both for her intelligence and for her complete lack of social skills, which he thought was rather funny.

When that first Christmas finally arrived, and they were reunited with the young Witch, she now only had stories about how happy she was with her new friends, some boys named Harry and Ron. She never did say how she managed to make these friends and Martin was convinced that there was more to it than the "you know what it's like when you spend all your time around people." That was partially because such an answer was much too vague for a girl like Hermione, and also, she'd never had a real friend before in her life, despite spending time around plenty of other kids. However, he decided to let it slide.

This pattern repeated over the next few years, with Hermione completely immersing herself within the Wizarding world for the majority of the year, sending the occasional missive to inform them that she was alright (those had mysteriously stopped for part of her second year though), before returning for a brief meander in the world of what Martin considered to be 'normal' people. However over the years these so called meanders into the real world became shorter and shorter, as she strived to improve her interpersonal relations with Harry, Ron, and whoever else she associated with in the Wizarding world.

Before he knew it, Martin was heading off into the world of work, and had his career all mapped out ahead of him, while his sister shut herself away to play at magic with the other Witches and Wizards. So it was that by the time Hermione had finished her fifth year at Hogwarts, Martin had just finished his first year of training with MI5. He no longer talked to his family much, he was so busy with his work that he only averaged a visit to his parents once every few months, and he hadn't even seen Hermione in 2 years. Despite the strained family situation, Martin was happy with where he was at the moment, and he had just received a letter that could signal the start of something even more exciting…

…~oOo~…

Martin had read the letter at least seven times this morning, each time getting more and more nervous. This could be a huge breakthrough in his career, in fact, nobody he had talked to so far had been in anywhere near the same situation, and that excited him immensely. As the hours ticked on and he went about his daily routine of exercising and combat training, using the mannequin he had in his flat, he couldn't help but get distracted by where he was going today. Today, he was going to number 10* on special invitation of the Prime Minister himself.

As it got closer to the allotted time for him to head to number 10, Martin went through a vigorous grooming routine so that when he showed up to the meeting with the Prime Minister he would look something like James Bond, only with the wrong hair and completely wrong face. He was hoping that the copious amount of hair products he was currently using would enable him to tame the infamous Granger hair (thankfully his short haircut meant it couldn't go _too_ bad if the various products he was using didn't work out). When he was finally satisfied that he looked appropriately dashing for a member of Her Majesty's Secret Service, he picked up his official documents and identification that would grant him entrance to the meeting and set off for 10 Downing Street.

The fog that encroached on him as he made his way towards the historic building felt like it was trying to sap his happiness away, and the longer he spent outside the more nervous he became about the meeting, what if it was because he had made unsatisfactory progress? Or had done something incredibly foolish during his training that had caused some sort of intelligence leak? This meeting wasn't going to be a good thing at all; it may well ruin all his future prospects.

When he reached the armed police who were guarding the entrance to Downing Street he provided the necessary documents and endured the customary frisking for any dangerous items before he was allowed to head down to number 10. The police men he saw outside were all nervous looking and jumpy, despite their best attempts to appear not so. To be honest, he couldn't blame them; this fog had a sort of oppressive feeling to it, something almost unnatural.

When he finally got inside it felt like a weight had been lifted right off his shoulders, and he was suddenly able to remember all the good possibilities that could come from his being here today, he put his change of mood down to a mixture of nervous excitement and the nasty weather outside. Unsure of exactly where to go next he quickly asked a rather tall black man, who introduced himself as Mr Shacklebolt and had possibly the most relaxing voice that Martin had ever heard, where he would find the Prime Minister. The man had quickly checked his documents and taken him to a room on the next floor up. Bracing himself and taking a deep breath, he reminded himself that this could well be the moment that defined the rest of his MI5 career, with that in mind, he opened the door.

…~oOo~…

Walking inside the well lit room he could see four semi-comfortable chairs in front of a very ornate looking desk, three of these chairs were currently occupied, with an extremely comfortable looking chair behind the desk that was currently empty. A quick look at the three occupants of the chairs told him one thing; the Prime Minister wasn't here yet. He swiftly moved forwards to sit on the remaining available chair, next to a man with a ramrod straight back who had flashed him a quick look as he entered the room before returning his gaze forwards, seemingly staring at nothing.

The man had short cropped dark brown hair, a rather large nose, a firm jaw, and was wearing Army fatigues, unlike the other occupants of the room, all of whom were wearing suits of some kind, on top of all this he seemed to be made of solid muscle, the guy was huge. The quick once over Martin had given him had shown him that despite his attempt to look calm by keeping a firm posture, the man was highly nervous about the upcoming meeting, as indicated by the perspiration on his forehead, and that he was also an officer with the rank of Lieutenant.

On the other side of the Lieutenant sat a woman who seemed much more relaxed in this sort of environment as she sat with her legs crossed while leaning back slightly in the chair to keep somewhat comfortable. She had above average looks with somewhat high cheekbones. Her hair was clearly meant to be long and wavy but had been pulled back into a formal looking bun which prevented Martin from getting the full measure of her appearance. She was wearing a white blouse with a tailored light grey suit jacket and knee length skirt to compliment it, on her feet were some expensive looking shoes that Martin's mother probably would have been able to analyse in a way that she could figure out everything there was to know about the wearer, however Martin sadly (or possibly fortunately seeing as Martin couldn't give two shits about the shoes people wear) lacked this talent. He also didn't fail to notice that the two men, besides himself, were religiously avoiding looking at her, probably meaning that she was more important than the two of them put together.

The final person in the room was the man sitting furthest from him. He was wearing a fairly low end pinstripe suit and was clearly very uncomfortable being here, he was fidgeting a lot and clearly felt extremely out of place among people who he felt were much higher up the socio-political ladder than he was. He was a good decade older than Martin at the least, and yet the man was clearly not in bad shape, in fact, he looked to be of a happy medium between the tall, lean figure of Martin and the brick shithouse** that was the army officer next to him. Like the woman and Martin, this final man didn't have anything on his person that directly indicated where he came from. Like the Lieutenant though, the man had very short hair (though not quite as short), however his was a sort of dirty blond colour.

Just as he'd finished his brief analysis of the three people in the room with him, the door opened again as someone else walked into the room. Before he even turned around, Martin knew what he would see. The Prime Minister was much older than any of the other people in the room and not as physically fit as any one of them, despite that though, he still carried an air of authority that drew people's attention to him when he entered a room, although, that could just be because he is very powerful politically.

"Prime Minister," they all said, standing up as a sign of respect. They received a quick nod in reply and a slight hand gesture telling them to sit down.

"Do you know why I called you here today?" said the PM as he took a seat in chair opposite them. He sounded rather calm when he said it, as if asking about the weather, he even sounded almost grandfatherly, however Martin could tell by the clenched fists and firmly set jaw, that the PM was in fact highly pissed off about something, and that something would be the reason behind their meeting.

"No, sir," they said in unison.

The PM simply lifted an eyebrow at them, as if unbelieving that none of them could have the faintest idea what this was about. After a momentary pause, he leaned forward, making eye contact with each of them in turn, "the reason you are here today," he paused for a second, whether for dramatic effect or because he didn't like discussing the subject, Martin didn't know, "because you all have knowledge of something that threatens our way of life, if not our very existence."

The room was completely still, Martin was pretty sure all of them had forgotten how to breathe at that moment, so absolute was the stillness. "You are here because you four are here because each of you knows about magic."

Martin felt like bursting out laughing, however he managed to hold it in. The seriousness of how he said magic did seem rather comical, it was just not something that someone would say in normal conversation. That said, the rest of the room was staring at the PM with wide eyed fascination.

"You four people," the PM resumed, "are the only people in this whole country, who both know about the Wizarding world, and have the training and skills required to do something about it." As he finished, the Prime Minister leaned back in his chair and moved his arms out, inviting them to speak. Immediately the woman in the middle spoke up.

"Sir, I fail to see how the Wizards are in any way a threat to our way of living, or our existence." The PM raised an eyebrow at this, indicating for her to continue, "I mean, my brother is a Wizard and he has never acted in a threatening way towards me, my family, or any other non-wizard that he's met. Also, how did you know that we are related to Wizards in the first place?"

"Suffice to say that a wizard named Cornelius Fudge is an idiot," said the PM with a slight smile, somewhere between a genuine grin and a smirk, "now just let me inform you on what is going on right now in the Wizarding world;" again a dramatic pause, "Lord Voldenaught has returned."

"It's said V- V- Voldemort, sir," said the man in the pinstriped suit on the end, he even gave an involuntary shudder as he uttered the name.

"Regardless," the PM continued on, "he and his followers, the Death Eaters, have been wreaking havoc in both the Magical and normal worlds alike, you've all heard of the mysteriously collapsing bridges I presume? They were even behind those murders that happened in this area recently. On top of that, they have released what are known as Dementors into our streets to cause fear among the populace. This is a war of terror, and we are currently ill equipped to combat it."

"I don't understand," said the woman, "my brother has never mentioned this Voldemort," at this the man on the end gave another shudder, "or these Death Eaters."

"He probably didn't want you to worry," the army officer finally spoke up, "my brother has kept me fairly well informed about the situation in the Magical world, but he still doesn't want to leave that god damned life behind, despite the dangers."

"And what of you?" the PM said, turning to look directly at Martin, "your sister is a witch, hasn't she told you about what's going on in her world?"

"My sister and I haven't talked in over 2 years sir," he replied honestly, "I had absolutely no idea about what was going on in the Wizarding world." Truth be told, Martin was shocked at what he had learned, that some group of magical terrorists were attacking normal people and Magic folk alike. What were they supposed to do against people who could use magic?

"Pity," the Prime Minister said, "regardless, I'm sure you can all see just how desperate this situation is. If we do not do something to fight this threat, we will be overcome by it."

"But can't the Wizards do something to stop it?" Martin put in, "I mean, you said they were threatening Wizards too, so why have their authorities not dealt with the problem?"

"That is something I am unfortunately not informed enough about to answer," the PM replied with a slight frown, "the Wizarding government has been very tight lipped with me about their efforts to stop this terrorist group. Although, from what I have been told, it sounds as if a full scale civil war could break out at any time. Needless to say, we cannot simply sit back and let the Wizards decide the fate of the Great British people. Time has come to act!" he emphasised his point by slamming his fist down on the table.

"As I said earlier, you four are the only people who I believe I can rely upon to do something to prevent these terrorists from destroying our great nation." He paused there, looking around each of them, trying to measure their resolve, "You four will form a team, together you will infiltrate the Magical world, and eliminate as many of these Death Eaters as you can. You are authorised to use any and all means you deem necessary to achieve this end."

The four of them could only stare at him in shock, infiltrate the magical world? He must be mad. Such a thing is surely impossible. Yet slowly, each of them began to nod, they would not let some crazy, evil Wizards decide the fates of them and their families.

"I'm glad you agree," said the PM with another of his half grin, half smirks, "now that you're all on board, I think some introductions are in order." When no one started to speak the PM once again took the lead in conversation, "very well, this is operative 'Athena'," he said, motioning towards the woman, "she will be spearheading this assignment. Tell us a bit about yourself."

Athena straightened up in her chair and looked at the rooms other occupants before speaking, "as the Prime Minister said, I am known as Athena, you'll never learn my real name so don't bother asking. I specialise in covert operations such as intelligence gathering and assassinations, I can also provide tactical assistance during a mission as well as a sound strategy before-hand. As I mentioned before, my brother is a wizard, the only one in the family."

Martin was impressed, it sounded like she was also working within the secret service, and it sounded like she was vastly more experienced than he was. Just as he was about to speak, the man in the pinstriped suit introduced himself.

"Alright then, my name is Aquila Selwyn. I'm a squib so I was disowned by my pureblood family when it became apparent that I lacked any magical ability." Martin had absolutely no idea what squib meant, but judging by what Selwyn had just said, it sounded like a person from a magical family who couldn't perform magic, sort of like the opposite of Hermione. "From then on I've lived here as a Muggle and managed to become a police officer. Through hard work and dedication I managed to become a firearms officer and I've been working in that capacity within the force for nearly four years now. I suppose that the reason I'm here is that because of my upbringing, I'm highly knowledgeable about how the Magical world works, at least more-so than the rest of you."

"I'm Lieutenant Roger Baily," the army officer said as soon as Selwyn had finished talking, "I served in the Gulf War*** where I sustained an injury that prevented me from continuing active service for the next five years. Over the last couple of years though, I have been able to re-join the armed forces as well as compete in several strong man competitions." _No kidding_, Martin thought, the guy looked like he could tear him in half, and quite easily at that. "My younger brother is a wizard and has tried to keep me informed about what's going on in his world."

"Which leaves me," Martin said with a smile, "My name is Martin Granger, I've just finished my first year of training with MI5 so I don't really specialise in anything per se, however all my mentors have praised me on my ability to think quickly and adapt to new situations, it also doesn't hurt that I've got good aim. My younger sister is a Witch, but as I said earlier we haven't talked for a while so I'm not very well informed about the state of the Magical world."

"Well then," the PM grinned at them again, "now that you all know each other, I think it's time for the first part of your assignment. You will need to gain access to the Magical world and create identities for yourselves within said world. From there you are to infiltrate the ministry of magic and find out as much as you can about the Death Eater threat. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no information to give you in regards to how to do this, so I'm hoping that Selwyn will be able to come up with some sort of idea on how to get around that problem."

"How will we establish ourselves as wizards without any magical currency?" Athena asked. Martin was pleased with how quickly she noticed this flaw in the plan, he hadn't even thought of it until she'd said it.

"I've managed to arrange for an account to be opened within the Wizard bank that contains the equivalent of about £300'000. I believe it should be accessible to any of you, and I'm sure that's more than enough to cover your expenses to start with." A modest sum as far as mission spending goes, but there would be only so much they could actually do with that money within the Wizarding world. The majority of their equipment would be provided by the government directly.

"The current conversion rate for Pounds to Galleons is currently £24.65 to every one Galleon. That makes a Sickle £1.45 and a Knut 5p. Therefore your Wizard account should contain about 12 thousand Galleons." The PM looked rather pleased with himself for remembering this, and Martin could understand why. The way these must add up made absolutely no sense to him.

"So that makes every Galleon worth 17 Sickles, and each of them made of 29 Knuts?" asked Athena, her mathematical prowess clearly on a whole different level from Martin's, "how utterly stupid."

"My thoughts exactly," replied the PM, "but stupid or not, it's what you'll be using to buy what you need to fit in within the Wizarding world. Needless to say, don't try to purchase a wand, or they'll be on to you faster than you can say 'deniable operative'," the PM gave them all a very serious look, "and 'deniable operative' is exactly how you will be acting. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal," replied Martin immediately, the others nodded along.

"Good," the PM leaned back in his chair and gave them another of his unique smiles, "I suppose you will want to get started then. You have one week to form a plan to get yourselves inside the Wizarding world. I want a full report of your action plans as well as any situation reports once it's been carried out." He then turned and looked directly at Athena, "you'll be answering directly to me on this, so don't be afraid to ask for any equipment or possible support. You're the only ones that can pull this off, don't let me down."

From there he dismissed the four members from the meeting room. On the way downstairs they quickly decided on meeting at Martin's flat the next day to start forming the plan of action. Thankfully they had unmarked police cars ready to take them home after the meeting so they didn't have to walk through the God awful fog.

When Martin finally got home he was filled with a mix of excitement, anxiety, and some strange feeling that he couldn't describe, although he was sure it had something to do with the possibility of seeing his sister again. "Well," he said to himself as he poured himself a quick drink from his liquor cabinet, "this is to a strange, fucked up world."

…~oOo~…

*10 Downing Street, the HQ of British government.

**UK colloquialism. A very big person, normally male who is as broad as he is tall yet carries very little fat. Not the sort of person you would willingly upset.

***Now known as the First Gulf War, UN coalition forces invaded Iraq in 1990-1991.

**AN:** Well, I hope you all enjoyed the start to this story. Don't forget to leave a review telling me what you thought. Also, I'm currently over 20'000 words into the writing of this story (I'm in for the long haul) so I'll be sure to keep updates pretty regular. See you all next week for the next chapter =D

PS. Don't forget to review ;D


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own any of the rights for the Harry Potter franchise, and if I did, would I be writing fanfiction? As such, I'm still not making money from this and never will.

Thanks to Arrows the Wolf for her beta services.

**Chapter Two – Preparation and Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. **

Kingsley Shacklebolt rematerialized just 20 feet from the Shrieking Shack, well within the wards that Dumbledore had set up to prevent surveillance and infiltration. Kingsley hated having to come here for the Order meetings; the place gave him the creeps (despite knowing that it wasn't actually haunted at all). Since Sirius had died they had stopped using Grimmauld Place for a whole variety of reasons, foremost amongst those was that if Voldemort asked Snape where the Order's headquarters were, he would have to tell him to maintain his cover. The next most important reason was that there were far too many secret keepers for the place now to ensure its safety. Finally, nobody really wanted to return to that mangy old place, the loss of Sirius would be all the more bitter if they spent so much time in his ancestral home.

The great irony of the situation was that the current meeting place wasn't even under the Fidelius charm. The simple reasoning behind that being; if the Death Eaters noticed that the Shrieking Shack had mysteriously vanished, the Order could guarantee that Voldemort would camp his whole army right where it ought to be until he got to curse some Order members.

Instead of relying on the Fidelius, Dumbledore had some rather complex and subtle obscuring and befuddlement wards that should make it near impossible for someone to be noticed going into the house, and also to redirect anyone trying to get too close that wasn't part of the Order. The second layer of wards were designed to make any Death Eater (with the obvious exception of Severus Snape) that did manage to find out where they were, and try to follow them to the Shack, seriously regret their decision to eavesdrop.

Judging by the slight tingling sensation over his skin, Kingsley supposed that the wards he was passing through were a type of flaying curse, not something many people walked away from. Also not something Dumbledore would usually cast on someone, meaning that there would also be a stasis ward linked into the flaying curse to keep anyone unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of said curse alive long enough to receive medical treatment and interrogation. Despite his grandfatherly demeanour, Dumbledore was definitely not the kind of person you would want to cross.

When Kingsley reached the door he knocked three times then took a pace back, so that whoever was on the door tonight could see clearly who he was through the spyhole. After exactly two and a half seconds (which Kingsley supposed meant it was Mad-Eye as he always took exactly that long) a hatch in the door was opened and a wand was aimed right at his heart.

"What is Albus Dumbledore's favourite confectionary?" the gruff voice of Alastor Moody spoke through the door. Kingsley gave himself a mental pat on the back for guessing correctly.

"Trick question, his preference in sweets changes too often for a definitive answer to be made. That said, it's most likely something muggle," Kingsley replied in his low, soothing tones.

Mad-Eye made a noise sounding something like a "Hrmph" as the old ex-Auror undid the many locks, both magical and not so, that barred the door. Soon enough, said door swung open, "Good enough," he grumbled. "Now get your arse inside before I hex you for wasting my time with long answers. And be sure to remind the mutt that he's on watch in 6 minutes!"

Kingsley walked through to the meeting room while Mad-Eye stayed watch at the door. Inside what he thought was the living room (they all look the same in this house, magically fixed furniture and scratch marks on the floor, walls, and somehow the ceiling) he found the rest of the members of the Order of the Phoenix all sitting in a circle while Snape gave his little monologue.

"… and at great risk to myself, I managed to trick the other Death Eaters into believing the stunned muggles were actually dead, I then administered memory charms to the muggles while the other two Death Eaters returned to Malfoy Manor. Once I returned from our game of – ahem – muggle hunting, I sat in on the meeting in which we were informed that we were to cease all attacks on Wizards temporarily while the Dark Lord gains an understanding of Scrimgeour's plans," Snape looked around the room with his chin up, seemingly revelling in his own importance, "therefore, we should focus as much of our forces as we can on keeping the Dark Lord's forces from attacking any innocent muggles."

Snape sat down in his chair, the room around him was completely silent until Dumbledore spoke up, "Well done Severus, with this information will save many lives." The aged Headmaster skimmed the room with his twinkling eyes, "I think we should try to suppress known Death Eater bases nearest to isolated muggle villages, those are the most likely to be attacked and if we can keep the Death Eaters focused on defending their bases they won't have time to attack the muggle populous."

"I'm not sure Albus," interjected Arthur Weasley, "the Death Eaters still outnumber us by too large a margin for us to risk attacking one of their strongholds." His words were met by some murmurs of agreement and nodding heads.

"If what Snape said is true," said Kingsley, his distinctive voice capturing the attention of everyone in the room.

"Which it is," muttered Snape, customary scowl locked in place.

Kingsley gave him a reassuring smile before continuing, "then we need not worry about mounting a full on attack on one of their strongholds. What I believe the headmaster meant, was to have small, attacks made against the base's perimeters so the Death Eaters will have to organise themselves defensively."

"Exactly what I was suggesting, Kingsley," Dumbledore's smile beamed around the room, filling the doubters with a new sense of confidence. _Now that_, thought Kingsley,_ is real magic_. "Seeing as the Death Eaters won't be attacking any Wizarding opposition for a while, we'll have more people spare to carry out small raids along various Death Eater positions, the more varied it is, the more on edge our foe will be."

"Alright then," Arthur acquiesced, "I'll make sure I do my part in this."

"So will I," said Bill, Molly and Arthur's oldest son and one of the newest Order members.

"Bill," Molly stepped in, "are you sure this-"

"Yes, mum," her son quickly cut off her attempt at 'reasoning' him out of danger, "this is a golden opportunity to put You-Know-Who's forces under pressure, and I'm sure as hell not going to waste this opportunity."

"Well said William," Dumbledore closed off that conversation before Molly could argue the point, "I'm sure that every one of us will be willing to do what is necessary to keep Voldemort's army from hurting innocents." More nods and words of agreement followed Dumbledore's words. "Excellent," the old man smiled, "now that that business has been dealt with for now; Kinsley," he looked directly at the tall, black man, "has your assignment with the Prime Minister turned up anything interesting?"

Kingsley fought the urge to scowl, he may be a dedicated member of the Order, but sometimes he felt bad about telling the whole room about classified Ministry secrets. Should the new Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour, find out about this sedition, he'd most likely be executed on the spot, or possibly tortured for information first. Even so, he knew that it would be the Order, and not the Ministry of Magic, that stood the best chance of defeating Voldemort, especially with the level of Death Eater infiltration within the Ministry right now.

"There has been a…" Kingsley took a moment to think of how best to put this, "curious development." _That ought to get them to the right amount of intrigue_. "Just yesterday, I was at number 10 when four people, none of whom had been to Downing Street before, came in to see the Prime Minister. Thankfully, I was able to look at all of their documents before they saw the Prime Minister; from this I learned two things. The first was that all of them have had some level of firearms and combat training. The second thing was an interesting feature of their surnames, a hunch I followed up by cross referencing with the Ministry of Magic's archives."

"What would a group of muggles be doing on the Ministry's archives?" interjected Remus Lupin. _Damnit_, Kingsley mentally kicked himself,_ I forgot to pass on Mad-Eye's message to Rem_-

"Remus, you useless mongrel!" Alastor's angry voice echoed through the room, along with the clunking of his wooden leg as he came through to the room, "you were meant to start your shift thirty seconds ago." Lupin just stared at him, mouth hanging slightly open in incredulity. "NOW!" roared Moody, causing Remus to jump up and run to the door, his question to Kingsley forgotten.

"Don't bother filling me in Shacklebolt," the crazed ex-Auror stated as he clunked over to claim Remus' vacant seat. "I heard it all from the door."

"Thank you so much for that Alastor," Kingsley threw back, a sardonic bite in his usually soothing voice, "now, to answer Remus' question," he got back into his flow, determined to put Alastor's interruption behind him. "The reason the names were on the Ministry's archives, is because it's not those four people who're on there, but rather their families." Kingsley stopped there, giving the room a moment to figure out the implications, Dumbledore's eyebrows had risen almost instantly, followed soon after by the raising of a singular eyebrow from Severus (just because he could), and Moody thoroughly scratching his chin in thought.

"Through that line of investigation," Kingsley continued, satisfied that people were giving his news the appropriate amount of thought, "I also found out that, for reasons known only to himself, Fudge gave the muggle Prime Minister a list of all witches and wizards with family who are currently living as muggles."

"Which would explain why he chose those four people for whatever job he has," Dumbledore thought out loud.

"Based on this," Kingsley ploughed on, determined to get to his final point, "and on the knowledge that only last week, the muggle Prime Minister was visited by both Fudge and Scrimgeour to discuss the Voldemort issue," cue involuntary shudders, "I believe that the muggles are planning on intervening in wizarding affairs. As two of the four are trained in espionage, I can only assume that the Prime Minister intends for them to infiltrate the Magical World and try to eliminate the Death Eaters." _Now this should cause a stir_, he thought, as he leant back in his chair and waited for the argument to break out.

"We don't need muggles clogging up the battlefield," came Mad-Eye's instant reply, "Kingsley, you make sure they don't get anywhere near the Magical world!"

"Why waste people trained to fight?" that was Bill, the younger man had already established himself as having a more radical view on how to deal with Death Eaters, advocating a much more lethal response than the majority of the Order. "If they're willing to take out a few Death Eaters then I say let them."

"And let them be slaughtered?" Molly rebuked her son with her most scalding tone, "I can't believe you would allow those poor, defenceless muggles to be harmed just on the off chance they would kill some Death Eaters. How would a muggle kill a Death Eater anyway?"

"They have firearms and combat training," Tonks butted into the argument, as her father was a muggleborn she had a much better understanding of what was meant by both terms than either Molly or Bill. "These people sound like trained killers, plus the Death Eaters would never suspect a muggle attack; they'd be caught with their pants down."

"This bickering is as idiotic as the majority of you are, maybe less so," Snape's cutting remark caused several glares, and a couple of middle fingers (Tonks and Bill), to be thrown his way. Still he carried on unfazed "regardless of whether or not a muggle taskforce would be able to take on the Death Eaters, which I highly doubt they could," he briefly flashed one if his superior smirks, "they would be completely unable to get into the Magical world, the whole point of their 'infiltration' would be lost if they were to be brought in to the Ministry or Diagon Alley by their relatives."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Severus," Kingsley rebuffed him, a genial smile on his face, "you see, within their group happens to be a squib, one Aquila Selwyn. Now I'm sure that, as he wasn't disowned and cast out until he turned eleven without any sign of magic, that he is still perfectly aware of how to enter just about anywhere in Wizarding Britain, and as such, will be able to bring the rest of his team through with him."

Following Kingsley's words, it looked as if everyone who had just been involved with the argument was about to start it right back up again, each having had time to think of a new justification for their standing, as well as a counter against the others.

"It would seem then," Dumbledore suddenly spoke, his voice imbued with power that demanded attention, effectively cutting off the argument before it could start up again, "that we have three choices before us."

"One; that we prevent the muggles from entering the Magical World all together, to do this we would have to memory wipe them and possibly move them to a new country to avoid any ramifications for not completing their mission."

"Two; we allow them to go about their mission without us interfering with them. That way they may be able to distract the Death Eaters giving us an advantage, also we won't be risking ourselves looking out for them."

"Finally, three; we assist them in their efforts to take down the Death Eaters, by combining our forces we would use their unconventional, in the Magical world at least, methods of warfare to our advantage by using our magic to assist them perform to the best of their abilities and by complimenting each-others skills and drawbacks." Dumbledore then sat back and looked around the room, it was clear to everyone that he was expecting a vote.

Mad-Eye was the first to speak, "One."

"Two."

"One."

"Two."

"Two."

"One."

"Three," Bill spoke up, the first to be in favour of helping the muggles.

The voting continued with a mix of ones and twos, broken only by Tonks supporting the third option, until it finally came to Kingsley. The veteran Auror took a moment to think over the positives and negatives of each once more before giving his answer. He knew that no matter what happened Albus would support the second option. But where did that leave him? What if he truly believed that Albus was wrong on this? He made his decision; "three."

…~oOo~…

Martin cracked open another can of some generic brand energy drink, this meeting had been going on for too long for his liking, especially seeing as a group of three people he'd met only yesterday were now messing up his perfectly positioned chairs by moving them around the coffee table to discuss the plans for getting into the Wizarding world. Truth be told, Martin didn't know what was taking them so long, Selwyn had covered his idea a good three times already.

"Ok, so first off we'll get in through the Leaky Cauldron, on Charing Cross Road," Selwyn swiped his hand through his short, blond hair, "we'll make sure to wear the long overcoats so hopefully nobody will notice we're in muggle wear. From there we head straight to Gringotts to collect what money we'll need for wizard supplies and for renting out a room at the Leaky Cauldron."

"You know, I'm still not comfortable having our base of operations in one of the Wizard's busiest pubs," Roger had raised the point several times before, and like all the previous times, his opinion was swiftly shot down by the boss, Athena.

"Your feelings on the matter are irrelevant," she said. Sharp and to the point, everything about her seemed to scream 'don't fuck with me!' Martin couldn't decide whether or not he liked her right now; part of him admired her blunt attitude, the other part was scared of it. "Until we find a more suitable location we have no choice but to use the Cauldron. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am," Roger's affirmative response was almost instinctual, probably something to do with the commanding tone in her voice.

"Anyway," Selwyn said with a contrived tone, clearly annoyed at having been interrupted yet again. "The Gringotts carts can only hold two passengers, so I'll be going in with Athena to make the collection. The two of you will take up positions to monitor the alley for anyone that could cause trouble for us; we'll all have earpieces so Athena can give you orders if something does come up."

"What positions will we be taking?" Martin asked.

"What?" Selwyn asked, momentarily stumped, "oh yeah. Well once you two have moved our luggage into the room upstairs you go back-"

"Hold it," Martin cut him short, "what's this about moving luggage?"

"Well how else are we going to get our stuff up there dipshit?"

"Enough!" Athena once again used her commanding tone, pulling both men from their little argument. "Get on with it, Selwyn."

"Yeah, as I was saying," the man continued, "after the luggage has been moved upstairs, you and Roger will be heading outside to take up positions that overlook the space in front of Gringotts. Roger, you'll be standing just outside Knockturn Alley smoking a pipe and looking like you're just trying to have a moment to yourself."

"A pipe?" Roger asked, incredulous, "how old do you think I am Selwyn? Besides I don't smoke."

"Wizards are trying to live as far back in the past as they can get away with," Selwyn said in a mocking tone, Martin got the impression he doesn't like Wizards much. "They don't have fags* in the Wizarding world."

"Well they'll have you soon enough," Martin quipped, resulting in a middle finger from Selwyn.

"Fuck you Rookie," Selwyn started, however he stopped after Athena cleared her throat in a forceful manner. "Alright then, smartarse, your position is a bit trickier, we need you in a place to watch the whole of Diagon Alley while Roger covers Knockturn Ally. To that effect, you need to find the busiest shop you can, while giving yourself a good view of the Alley, and make sure you remain incognito in your position until you see us coming out of the bank." Selwyn finished his little monologue with a nasty grin.

Martin downed the remainder of his energy drink in one go and threw it over his shoulder into the recycling box, hoping to look at least somewhat cool, "piece of cake," he said with a grin.

"We'll see," Selwyn smirked back, "once we've got the money we'll head straight for Madam Malkin's Robes for all Occasions to get what we'll need to blend in. After that, I guess we should just head back up to the Leaky Cauldron." He finished with a questioning look towards Athena.

"Sounds fine to me," Athena acknowledged, "any further questions?" she asked of the two other men, to which Martin simply shrugged his shoulders and looked towards Roger.

"What should we do if we do spot trouble outside the bank?" he asked.

"We'll all be issued a silenced pistol, SMG, and a short bladed combat knife." _Good_, Martin thought, _all easily concealable and able to maintain the element of surprise_. "I assume that will be sufficient to deal with any threats you encounter."

"Yes Ma'am."

"Good. We'll have to wait a while before we can start the mission," she looked slightly annoyed at that. "It will take the Prime Minister a while to get us all the equipment we need without it looking too suspect. I suggest you all relax and rest up while you can. As soon as the equipment is ready, we're going in."

…~oOo~…

*The word 'fags' is often used in the UK as slang word for cigarette. It's also used as an insult alluding to someone being gay (hence Martin's joke).

For those with no knowledge of guns: Don't worry, I'm not a gun buff myself so they won't be very complicated descriptions of things, suffice to say that SMG stands for Sub Machine Gun, any further descriptions you need can be found on some sort of search engine.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I still don't own any of the rights to Harry Potter. This is still a work of fan fiction and as such making me no money what-so-ever. There are several lines of dialogue that are taken from the Half Blood Prince book; I won't say exactly where in case it ruins it for you. Have fun =)

**Chapter Three – Not Quite Reunion.**

As it turned out, getting the military grade equipment that they needed took much longer than even Athena had expected, and as such, they spent the most of the summer jumping between using their time off to relax and getting seriously wound up about the mission. After the first few weeks of nothing happening, Martin had booked himself a weekend in Cornwall so he could go surfing before he had to leave. This was meant to ease the building anxiety over the upcoming mission. Also, it was easier to get laid down there for some reason, go figure. When he got back he was treated to another few weeks of absolutely nothing before he finally received a call from Athena saying that the equipment was all ready and they would be starting on Saturday.

Martin didn't like how long it had taken; they were now approaching the end of the summer holidays; so Diagon Alley should be absolutely swimming in children and their families. It was about this time four years ago that his parents had accompanied Hermione to Diagon Alley before her second year, he'd always regretted not going, but it had been his best mate's birthday party on the day. He allowed himself a few moments to ponder what Hermione would be doing right now; reading a book was the most likely, but then again, he hadn't talked to her in so long; maybe she had a boyfriend now (well she is going on 17), or had slowed down on the reading. Then again, it was Hermione he was thinking about, she'd never have the social acumen to snag any boy that was good enough for her, and also, Martin had very high doubts that she would EVER be able to curb her addiction to reading.

When Saturday finally arrived, the team had decided to meet up at the end of Charing Cross Road, all of them dressed in what they felt were the most hideous, long coats ever to be invented. All of them came down to just above the ankles, had absolutely no pockets, and were a couple of sizes too big so that they were able to easily cover the whole body in a way that (according to Selwyn) would look not too dissimilar to the way a cloak would be worn by a wizard. However, the main travesty to occur in their wardrobe planning had occurred when Selwyn had informed them, with a sort of sick pleasure at their discomfort, that seeing as wizards had no fashion sense and they would need to keep their ear pieces hidden, that he had taken the liberty of procuring each of them a hat that in no way matched what they looked like.

When they saw each other, even Athena couldn't help but pull the odd face somewhere between a laugh and a grimace, they just looked that stupid.

"I'm going to kill you Selwyn," Martin deadpanned as he adjusted his burgundy bowler hat, trying to find a place on top of his trademark Granger hair that it would stay still, "I shit you not."

"Stop fussing," the shorter man replied with a wicked grin, "you'll attract too much attention to us."

"No," Martin looked around in mock disbelief - all around the street people were moving to give their group a wide berth - then looked back at Selwyn with a baleful glare, "you think?"

"Enough you two," interjected Athena, as she donned her peacock feather hat, "we'll only be out in the normal world for a few more minutes, once we're in Diagon Alley everything will be fine – dear God, what is Bailey wearing?"

Roger was walking straight towards them, a determined look on his face, as he ignored the jeers of the group of youths across the road. Atop his head was a top hat so large that would have done Abraham Lincoln proud, the only downside being that it was the brightest shade of neon green that Martin had ever seen.

The sight was too much for Selwyn, and the man doubled over in laughter, drawing an inordinate amount of satisfaction from the idiotic way the others had adorned their heads. "You know what sad part is?" he asked between peals of laughter, just as Roger finally reached them, "you may look like a load of right idiots out here," another fit of laughing ensued before he could continue, "but in there you'll fit right in."

"We'd better do," Martin growled, his levels of embarrassment rapidly climbing the longer he had to expose himself in this way before a group of non-magical people.

"Why don't you have a hat, Selwyn?" asked Roger as he took in the doubled up police officer. To his credit, Selwyn did manage to reign in his laughter and stand up straight to answer.

"Because, Bailey," he smirked and ran his hand through his hair, which was slicked back in a way that was allegedly aristocratic. "Our account is an account under my name and I need to look like a proud member of a pureblood house returning to the Magical world after a long time spent dealing with muggles."

"But you're not a proud member of your family," Roger countered, mightily pissed off that Selwyn had gotten away with not wearing a daft hat. "I'm pretty sure you mentioned being disowned when you were a child… or did I dream that?" he finished with an uncharacteristically snide look.

"Oh snap," Martin laughed as Selwyn spluttered in anger, "I hope you have some cooling lotion, 'cause you just got burned!"

"Honestly," Athena shook her head, "it's like looking after a group of small children. Alright you lot, let's get on with it," she took off in the direction of where Selwyn said the Leaky Cauldron was, a large suitcase in each hand. Soon the three men had caught up with her and Selwyn took the lead, taking them through the enchanted barrier between normal London and the Leaky Cauldron.

Martin's first impression of the place was that it had clearly seen better days. The whole building seemed to be in a state of something between ill kept and dilapidation. The second thing he noticed was that Selwyn was absolutely right, the oddness of some of the patron's clothes was on a level he never would have thought possible outside of the Rocky Horror Show. Flowing black robes seemed to be the type of clothing most people had gone for, however there was one man at the bar with a two foot high pointy hat with a chicken head dangling off the top. Next to him was a witch with robes that had patches of each of the primary colours (and for some reason a smattering of brown). In fact, the only one of the team that was actually noticed by the inn's patrons was Selwyn. The rest of them didn't even get a second glance.

The four of them made their way over to the counter where a wizened, toothless old man stood cleaning mugs by tapping them with his wand. "What can I do you for?" he asked Selwyn as they reached the counter, completely ignoring the others. Clearly, this aristocratic nonsense Selwyn had been aiming to convey had worked.

"I require a large room with four beds," Selwyn said in the most stuck up, pompous, self-aggrandizing voice Martin had ever heard, "a double for myself and singles for my companions. We'll be staying for an undetermined amount of time so make sure the room will be available for a long time."

"I have one, just as you asked for," the inn keeper replied, "I'll just move a couple of single beds in and it'll be good to go. Keeping it booked up is gonna cost you though. How will you be paying?"

"I need to head down to Gringotts to take out some money, we've been abroad recently and I rarely take large amounts of coin with me anywhere uncivilized, I'm sure you understand," Selwyn replied with an air of nonchalance, "as soon as I've returned I'll pay you rent on the room for the next two months. Now, I'll be heading off to the bank, see to it that these two get everything to the room without incident," he motioned casually to Martin and Roger before turning on his heel and striding out of the inn with Athena next to him.

"Right then," the inn keeper said, flicking his wand so that all the group's luggage floated up the staircase, "follow me, you two." He led them upstairs and into a spacious room with a single and a double bed. With another few flicks of his wand he'd summoned another two singles; Martin had to stop himself from staring in wonder. "If you need anything else be sure to give me a shout," the man said as he stepped forwards and gave them a key for the room, "and the names Tom. 'Ave a nice day." And with that the man turned on the spot and with a _crack_ noise vanished from sight. Luckily there were no other Wizards about or they would have seen Martin and Roger jump in surprise.

…~oOo~…

As the two of them walked out of the inn and through an archway, they saw Diagon Alley for the first time. Martin found himself quite shocked at just how few people were out here today. From what his parents had told him of their visit, it had been a veritable beehive of activity.

As he and Roger walked down Diagon Alley towards their lookout positions it was hard to escape the faces of crazed Death Eaters screaming silently at them from the Undesirable posters that lined the shops all down the street. These left little to the imagination about the reason people weren't shopping in Diagon Alley right now. People were afraid; the taste of fear was almost palpable on the air.

Soon Roger split off, heading towards an archway bearing the sign 'Kockturn Alley' where he proceeded to lean against the wall of the nearest shop and pull out an ancient looking pipe. Martin carried on heading down the Alley, looking for the busiest shop to use as his lookout position. It didn't take him long. Only one shop seemed to be full of people, incidentally, it was the only shop that didn't have posters of Death Eaters plastered all over the windows. In fact, one of the posters in the window was advertising some sort of constipation product, the tagline of which was U-No-Poo. Martin had to stifle a snort of laughter as he headed into Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

Stepping into the shop, Martin felt like his eyes were being assaulted; the sheer variety and brightness of the various colours was simply mind boggling, especially after the depressing air of the rest of Diagon Alley. All around him were flashing items and other wizardy things that he didn't understand at all. Swiftly, so as not to attract attention by looking lost, he headed over to a display holding a reusable hangman. He stared in morbid fascination as the little wooden man climbed the steps to the gallows and slipped the rope around its neck. Shacking himself from this distraction, he glanced out of the window and started the task of surveying the Alleyway for any unsavoury characters. Just a few moments later his earpiece buzzed into life.

"I heard it took over five hours to make a withdrawal yesterday, Arkie Philpott had a probity probe shoved up his bottom," came the muffled voice of a woman. It sounded as if Athena was broadcasting their conversation to give them a heads up on what was happening on their end. "Thankfully it doesn't seem to be too busy today so the wait should be much shorter," the woman's voice continued. Martin glanced across the Alley towards Roger, who shot him a worried look, there was no way they could hold these positions for anywhere near that long without someone noticing them.

"Looks like we're up next," came Selwyn's voice. Both Martin and Roger's heads spun to look towards the entrance of Gringotts, where they could see a group of four wizards wave glowing staffs around both Selwyn and Athena. After about a minute they were both allowed through. _What a bunch of idiots_, Martin thought about the wizards, _those probity probe things must only scan for magical items, they just completely ignored the hidden guns and knives those two were carrying_.

It was a few minutes longer before the earpiece was activated again, this time it was a conversation between Selwyn and something that didn't sound quite human.

"Mr, ah, Selmy," came the strange sounding voice. "I see you have recently opened up an account with this branch of Gringotts. May I inquire as to where this money came from? I haven't heard of your house before." _What's going on?_ Martin thought to himself before figuring out what this all meant. _Ah shit, the account is under the wrong name, and bankers are on to him_.

"My great grandfather, Barristan Selmy, had only daughters," Selwyn said, as if talking to a child, "therefore the name is no longer in use as it has become extinct in the male line. However, I have decided to reinstate the house of Selmy to its former glory by taking up the mantle of head of that house."

"I see," said the banker, his voice filled with scepticism, "then I suppose that you have your key, Mr Selmy?"

"Of course." There was the sound of something heavy being slapped onto a wooden counter.

"Very well, Dahgrod! Take these two to their vault." After that the earpiece fell silent again.

"Barristan Selmy?" Martin quietly asked Roger, opening a private channel, "did he take that straight from that Game of Thrones book?"

"Hell if I know," was Roger's reply, "never read it."

"You really should, it's bloody awesome. It was released in the US not long ago." Martin's reading habit was somewhat different to his sister's, and while he still read a lot (although the amount of books he had read paled in comparison to Hermione's reading list) his literary taste ventured more towards fiction than Hermione's obsession on fact based learning.

Just at that moment the door to the shop opened and Martin caught a glimpse of the last person in the world he wanted to see here; Hermione. If anyone was likely to blow his cover then it would be her, the problem was that she was in between him and the door, so he couldn't make a quick getaway. Resigning himself to the fact he wouldn't be able to get around her any time soon, he decided to surreptitiously watch her. God knows it'd been too long since he last saw his baby sister.

The first thing that he noticed was the big black eye she was sporting, he had to fight his brotherly instinct to run up and demand that she let him beat someone up for injuring her. Secondly he noticed that she and a boy with messy black hair were the only two in her group that weren't gingers; so this must be the Weasley family that Mr and Mrs Granger feared were becoming like surrogate parents to Hermione in the Wizarding world. It was at that point that the black haired boy, a ginger boy, and Hermione started heading his way. Martin moved around to a different part of the display so as to avoid her gaze. Oddly enough, she seemed not to notice him dressed in his ugly coat and silly hat. She must have become acclimatised to the Wizards ludicrous dress sense.

"Patented day-dream charms!" she practically squealed in excitement, pulling the messy haired boy over to look at the box she was holding before she started reading the description on the back of the packaging. Her voice had lost a lot of the bossy tone that Martin remembered hearing when she was younger. She'd also grown up a lot physically as well, for want of a better way to describe her, Martin decided to stick with 'smoking' and allowed himself a small smile of pride in his sister for maturing into such a fine young woman. Hell he may even acknowledge her in public when this whole thing was over.

Then again, he wasn't the only person to think so. He had to force himself not to jump forwards and deck the ginger boy who was staring jealously at the contact between Hermione and the messy haired boy. Martin swiftly averted his eyes, lest he be notices glaring at the child.

"You know," she said, looking to the bespectacled boy, "that really is extraordinary magic!"

"For that, Hermione," yet another ginger had appeared, this one dressed in a shop uniform, sporting a badge claiming he was the manager, "you can have one for free." The new ginger then shook the bespectacled boy's hand saying something like, "hello Harry," to him. _So this must be the Harry Potter I was told about when Hermione was younger_,_ I guess that makes the ginger Ron_. "What's happened to your eye, Hermione?" the new ginger continued, oblivious to their spectator.

"Your punching telescope," she said ruefully. Martin had the sudden urge to pull out his pistol and cap the idiot who caused his sister's black eye. This was turning out to be far too stressful for him. He had to move away slightly as another ginger, this one a fairly good looking girl, about Hermione's age, moved in between them. He watched as Hermione talked a bit more to the manager who gave her a tub of something, presumably for the black eye. After that the manager was joined by another who could only be his twin, and the two whisked the Harry boy off into the back rooms. Martin chose that point to head to the exit unimpeded; however, lady luck didn't seem to be on his side that day.

"Look at these!" a much older, balding ginger man suddenly turned round to look for the nearest person he could talk too; unfortunately, that happened to be Martin. "Come look at this," the man said excitedly, ushering Martin over to a display of what Martin recognised as magic tricks, such as decks of cards and instruction manuals on how to do sleight of hand magic, "the thinks these muggles come up with," the man said fondly, he then proceeded to attempt to explain how electricity works… wrongly.

By the time he managed to escape the one sided conversation, Harry had returned to the room and he, Ron, and Hermione were watching a pale boy with blond hair walking towards Knockturn Alley through the window. A few moments later the three of them had completely vanished under a large cloak that made them vanish from sight. Fighting his shock at seeing his baby sister vanish in front of him, Martin moved quickly towards the door, seeing It open a fraction on its own confirmed his suspicion that they were following the blond boy.

"I've got a target," he said into the open channel, "moving to pursue. Targets heading to Knockturn Alley."

"Do you want me to pursue?" asked Roger.

"Negative, targets have made themselves invisible, hold position."

Martin walked straight down Knockturn Alley, thankfully, the three of them seemed to be slightly too big for the cloak, and Martin caught glimpses of their feet every now and again as he followed a few meters behind. The three invisible kids suddenly stopped outside a shop called Borgin and Burkes, where Martin caught a quick conversation as he took up a position just around the corner from them; they were soon silent, presumably eavesdropping.

A few minutes later the pale skinned boy left the shop and headed back towards Diagon Alley, the three hidden children had another brief conversation before Hermione jumped out of the cloak and walked right into the shop. Martin caught himself just before he ran into the shop after her. _What is she thinking?_

A few moments later she returned, with the door slamming shut behind her and the sign being switched from open to closed; seemed like she'd pissed the owner off. "Ah well," came the disembodied voice of one of the boys as Hermione disappeared under the cloak once again. "Worth a try, but you were a bit obvious –"

"Well, next time you can show me how it's done, Master of Mystery," she snapped back. Martin had to supress a snigger at his sister's retort. He then followed the sound of bickering as the group moved back towards Diagon Alley.

"All clear," he said to the open channel as he returned to Diagon Alley.

"Still no word from Athena and Selwyn," said Roger, "they must still be underground."

"Well I can't go back into the shop without risking discovery. I'll take point near the archway by the inn." Martin moved back to the entrance to the Wizarding alleyway and leant against the wall, keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity.

He stayed in that position for a further twenty minutes until the earpiece finally buzzed again, this time with Athena's voice, "on our way out, all units move to Madam Malkin's."

They met up inside the robe shop and swiftly looked through the robes on the rack for clothes they could fit into properly. When asked whether they would like to be measured, Selwyn had put on the most contemptible sneer he could and told the woman asking that, "we'll be heading to Paris for some real clothes later this week, until then these will do." Following that they hadn't been bothered again and they soon found themselves heading back up to the Leaky Cauldren.

…~oOo~…

Once the team had returned to the room, Athena immediately went through the debriefing, eager to get this part over and done with so she could inform the PM of their success so far, and so they could begin planning phase 2. "Bailey, Granger, sit-rep," she said in her brusque manner.

"Nothing to report from me," Roger replied straight away, "Martin tailed someone down Knockturn Alley, but signalled all clear." Athena turned with a lifted eyebrow to Martin.

"I noticed a group of people following a young man after putting on some sort of invisibility cloak," Martin informed the room, "I felt it would be best to make sure that there was nothing insidious happening, it wouldn't do to have the Wizarding authorities or Death Eaters flock the area at this stage in the mission."

"You on about the blond kid?" Roger asked, "he seemed really jumpy when he went down into Knockturn Alley."

"Yeah," Martin nodded in acknowledgement, "thankfully nothing came of it, so I sounded the all clear. Anyway, what took you two so long?"

"It took us ages to go through all the caverns, and that's not to mention the line for the bloody probity probes," Selwyn replied with a frown, "you know I thought we would be found out for sure, I had my hand on the pistol all the time in that line. Thank Merlin that they don't detect muggle weaponry though."

"Seems like a major oversight if you ask me," Martin commented, "I mean, it's not even the fact that they don't have to deal with guns. I'm sure they should have at least clocked onto the knives."

"Wizards don't see Knives as a threat," Selwyn replied derisively, "they think a wand is more than capable of dealing with someone holding a knife, that sort of contempt for normal people has seeped into every aspect of their culture; including security."

"Clearly," Martin mused, "well, they'll sure as hell regret it once we've riddled a few Death Eaters with bullets."

"Amen to that," Roger piped in. The three then shared in a quiet moment, thinking about what was waiting ahead of them.

"Now that that's dealt with," Athena cut through their ruminations, "we need to begin planning for phase two of the plan. We need to infiltrate the Ministry of Magic, from there we can find out information on which Death Eaters to target."

"Are you sure that will work?" asked Roger, "Surely if they knew who the Death Eaters were they'd be able to do something about it."

"Maybe so," Athena acknowledged, "but they are being held back by their laws, they can't just go killing people who they suspect are Death Eaters without any proof. However, we can, call it a pre-emptive strike if you want. Regardless, we'll use Ministry resources to find our targets, and then we'll make sure they are put down before they cause any more damage to normal people."

"Just a tad calloused don't you think?" Martin asked, not really liking the part about killing people without definitive proof of their allegiance to Voldemort. "What if we kill an innocent?"

"It's a necessary risk," she replied bluntly. "It's too late to back out now, either you're in or your out. No half measures." Martin was sure he could see her hand easing towards the silenced pistol lying on the bed, and he was sure a woman like her would have no issues about gunning him down for what she perceived to be sedition.

"I'm in," he said straight away, hoping that would waylay her doubts, "you can count on me to do what needs to be done." He finished with a firm nod of the head, looking her straight in the eyes, trying to convey the truth behind his words.

"Of course I'm in," Selwyn grinned, "I've always dreamed about getting back at those bigoted pricks I call my family."

"I'm in too," Roger finally said, although Martin was sure he could see the glimmer of doubt in the other man's eyes.

Athena gave a slight smile before leaning forward, "good, now let's get down to business."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **Sadly, I still don't own the rights to Harry Potter. Better luck next time.

**Warning:** As well as the usual foul language that sometimes creeps into conversations, there will be violence. To those who are offended by violence; you have been warned.

**AN:** Sorry this one's a couple of days late, I was possibly very drunk and/or hung-over and as such couldn't muster the will to update on time.

**Chapter Four – The Ministry of Magic.**

"So who looks stupid now?" Martin asked gleefully asked Selwyn, who was now wearing a silver, glittery fedora with a decorative stuffed rat stuck on top.

"Shut. Your. Mouth," Selwyn practically growled through his clenched teeth.

The reason behind Selwyn's admission into what Martin had dubbed, 'the eccentric hat ensemble' (Roger had tried explaining that an ensemble only applies to a musical group, however Martin had told him that the hats were so visually loud as to be musical without noise), was because of the way they planned on gathering data from the ministry; as the best way to infiltrate an organisation was to masquerade as workers while secretly intelligence gathering. The main problem they had faced from the outset with their plans was their inability to use magic, because of this; they would only be able to apply for a limited amount of jobs, which meant they had less chance of getting to anywhere that might hold the information they would need.

To combat this, the team (or rather Selwyn) had come up with a relatively plausible reason for not using wands. This was, that they were all going away to study wandless magic in Tibet next year, and that they needed to lose their reliance on wands prior to going to study there. Whether or not people actually did study wandless magic in Tibet was anyone's guess, they were just hoping that the typically insular magical community would be, on the whole, poorly informed about foreign magical practices.

This need to go for non-wand using jobs had resulted in Selwyn purchasing a ludicrous looking hat simply because the head of an up and coming new house (such as the house of Selmy, the house which he had pretended to be the aristocratic head for) would not be seen dead without a wand. And as such, Selwyn needed a new guise, the guise of someone not very important, who could be entered into menial tasks that could be performed without the use of a wand; the sort of unremarkable person who didn't stand out from other wizards in any way, hence the piece of ridiculous headwear.

Martin had been the one tasked with finding out how to get into the Ministry of Magic; Athena had been 'too busy' working on improving the signal range of their earpieces so they didn't have a repeat of when she and Selwyn went dark in Gringotts. The remaining three of them had drawn straws, each worried about what sort of response would come from asking someone for directions that should be obvious for an adult wizard. However, it had turned out that the old inn keeper, Tom, was more than happy to help and gave Martin the instructions on how to get into the visitor's entrance, no questions asked.

"Well then," he said as they approached the derelict phone booth, "here we are."

"And the four of us are meant to fit in that?" Athena asked in mild disbelief.

"It'll have undetectable extension charms on it," Selwyn replied to what she had meant to be a rhetorical question, "it should also have a muggle repelling ward on it."

"Well, I'm a muggle," Martin started with a grin, "and the only thing I'm repulsed by is standing right next to me."

"I didn't realise you found Roger so repugnant," Selwyn immediately quipped back, with a smirk.

"Touché."

"Enough." Athena's command silenced the bickering men. "Selwyn, why aren't we being redirected by the wards?"

"Maybe we have the wrong booth," Roger put in, "I mean, there are a damn lot of them."

"No," Martin answered, ready to defend his navigational skills, "Tom was very specific."

"It's probably because we know they're there," Selwyn told the group, "sort of like the anti-muggle wards on the Leaky Cauldron, once you're aware, and want to go in, they won't stop you."

"Fair enough," Martin said, "now let's just get this over with." He stepped into the phone booth, finding it to be much roomier on the inside than it had appeared from outside. _Damn I wish I could do this to my flat_, he thought. Once the rest of the team had entered, he picked up the receiver, dialled 6-2-4-4-2.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business." All four of them jumped at the sound of the cool female voice, not because it had been unexpected as such, but because it had come from a place they hadn't expected it. Instead of being heard from the earpiece of the receiver it sounded as if there was a rather loud, invisible woman standing right next to them.

"Martin, Aquila, Roger, and Athena Selmy here to apply for jobs with the Ministry," Martin said clearly into the receiver's mouthpiece, whether or not this was necessary he didn't know, but he thought it was best to speak into it anyway, just to be sure.

"Thank you," came the voice again, "please take badges and affix them to the front of your robes." Some clicking and rattling later, there were four silver badges sitting in the return chute that usually gave out change after a phone call. Each badge had their name and the word 'unemployed' written underneath it, this elicited a "hrmph!" from Athena.

"Visitors to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium." Following the voices announcement, the floor of the phone booth gave a shudder and started to sink into the ground.

"How are we going to explain away the weapons we have hidden under our cloaks when they search us?" Roger asked apprehensively.

"With any luck, the search will be done with those probity probes that they used at Gringotts," Selwyn said, although he too sounded rather nervous. "If not, then we just hope they have no idea what a pistol is."

"At least we'll get a chance to see if our 'no wands in Tibet' story will hold up," Martin said, forcing a grin on his face in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"The Ministry of Magic Wishes you a pleasant day," the cool voice said as the doors of the phone booth sprang open. As the team stepped out they were momentarily stunned by the magnificence of the huge hall that stretched out before them. The floor was made of some sort of polished dark wood, and the walls of a smooth black stone with green tinges. All along the walls were fireplaces, some of which would burst with bright green flames as a wizard or witch stepped out and into the atrium. Further along, towards the back of the hall, was a large pool, the centre of which held a large sign saying, 'The Fountain of Magical Brethren is Under Repairs Following the Attack on the Ministry by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'.

As they approached the far end of the atrium, careful not to attract the attention of the wizards and witches that were materialising from the fireplaces all around them, it was easy for them to see just how security had taken a high priority in these troubled times; all over the atrium, wizards wearing light blue robes with silver 'security' badges were watching with beady eyes as new arrivals entered via the fireplaces. When they finally reached the checkpoint towards the end of the hall, they had to wait in line as new arrivals to the Ministry were checked with probity probes.

"Thank God for that," Martin said. Selwyn had said the same thing, instead swapping 'God' for 'Merlin'. The whole team let out a collective sigh of relief as they saw the Wizards ahead of them have the staffs waved all around them. By the time it was their turn to be scanned for dark or concealed magical items, all of Martin's nerves had pretty much cooled, and he was feeling confident about bluffing his way through the wand inspection, or lack thereof.

"Visitors," a bored sounding voice called from a security desk, behind which a rather chubby wizard in the blue security robes was sitting. "Please hand over your wands for inspection."

"I'm afraid we won't be able to do that," Selwyn answered easily, being the most at ease within the Wizarding world, he had been designated the task of explanations.

"That so?" the guard asked cautiously, reaching for his own wand. Out of the corner of his eye Martin noticed a group of ministry guards moving in on them with wands drawn. He forced himself not to reach for his weapons, to keep up the calm façade.

"Yes," Selwyn's voice quivered ever so slightly as his eyes darted to the armed wizards surrounding them, "You see, we're going to Tibet to study wandless magic next year. The preparation includes not using your wand for at least a year prior so you no longer have to rely on it."

The security wizard didn't look convinced. "Alright," he seemed to be willing to indulge them, possibly angling to avoid causing more of a scene by opening fire on four people without wands, "hands above your heads, the probity probes will decide whether or not you're telling the truth." Martin could have kissed the man at those words.

In no time at all the suspicion levelled at the four of them had been swept away, the probity probes had found nothing. To complement their success in this field, the security guard who had asked about their wands was now apologising profusely and trying to tell them that he had the upmost respect for wizards who studied wandless magic and had nothing against the custom of not using wands held by African wizards, like those you would find in Tibet. Martin didn't bother correcting his faulty geography.

"So why are you here then?" asked the flustered security guard. Martin just pointed to the badge with the word 'unemployed' stamped under his name. "Ah, well you'll have to head up to the recruitment office on level three. Good luck." The team were moving as soon as the words had left the man's mouth, they followed the flow of human traffic towards a set of elevators they all managed to squeeze in the same one with only a few other people and hit the button for level three.

They had all nearly fallen over when the elevator took off backwards before rocketing off towards level three. However, their surprise wore off quickly as they were now getting used to the unconventional ways that things work in the magical world, such as people travelling via fireplace.

"Level three, Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, Ministry Recruitment Offices, and the Magical Maintenance Department," the lift said as the doors opened onto level three. The group swiftly exited and moved down the oddly rounded corridors, following the signs for the recruitment offices, until they found themselves outside the door of one Reginald. D. Parkinson, Ministry Recruitment Head-Officer.

"Brilliant," Selwyn grumbled as they moved towards the door, "a pureblood fanatic, just what we need." After knocking, and receiving a brusque 'enter' the four of them pushed through the door and found themselves looking at the most pug-like man that any of them had ever seen in their lives. Mr Parkinson's face was so squashed that it looked as if he had been swatted with a heavy frying pan just five minutes ago.

"Yes?" the man asked in a bored voice, though his beady eyes swept over them, trying to calculate what their blood status was.

"Good morning Mr Parkinson," Selwyn took control of the situation, "we were told that we could apply for jobs here."

"Alright," the man pulled out a few forms and a quill. "First I'll need to see your papers." The four of them all whipped out their recently made fake lists of qualifications and previous jobs. Mr Parkinson looked over them for a few moments before stopping and re-reading Roger, "male escort?" he lifted an eyebrow at Roger, who's face turned a brilliant shade of red, Martin and Selwyn had to held their involuntary laughter as Roger mumbled something about women liking a large man.

"Right then," Parkinson said as he started filling in the four forms, "with your qualifications I believe that you'll all be well suited to the Department of Magical maintenance, just down the hall."

"Actually," Selwyn spoke up; ignoring the glare he received from Parkinson for interrupting. "I think it would be better if we had jobs that didn't require the use of magic. We're all going to Tibet next year to study wandless magic, so we're not using our wands to prepare ourselves.

Parkinson looked at them in mild disbelief before shaking his head. "Wandless magic, what will these Africans think of next."

"Tibet isn't even in Africa-" Martin started to say before being silenced by a glare from Parkinson that clearly said '_does it look like I give one_?'

"In that case," the pug faced man continued, "I know just what to do with you." He pulled out a couple more forms and started filling them in. "Here," he handed the forms to Selwyn and Athena, along with two of the ones he filled in earlier, "you two will be going to the archives on level two. No magic is permitted down there to prevent accidental spell damage. It should suit you just fine."

He then pulled out another two forms and filled those in before handing them to Roger and Martin. "These'll get you into the couriers department, down on level nine." He said with a wicked smile, "it's right next to the Department of Mysteries so it's usually really empty. You'll be taking items from storage to wherever they're needed in the other departments. Couple of healthy looking guys like yourselves should have no problem." The man clearly took some sort of malicious pleasure out of giving them the absolute worst jobs in the ministry.

…~oOo~…

Working as a ministry courier was not a fun job, also, it in no way helped them gather any useful intelligence about any Death Eater activity. To make matters worse, the courier office and storage facility was located on level nine, which meant that they were constantly traveling up and down the staircases to get to the various parts of the ministry. The two of them had taken to using the stairs simply because it was much less crowded, and as such, let them move around more freely.

There were only eight couriers employed by the ministry, they worked in pairs for six hours each for next to no pay. The only, very slim, chance that Roger and Martin got to gather any intelligence was when they had to deliver sensitive documents, and for some reason blood replenishing potion, to the Auror office. However they had to be very careful not to appear to be eaves dropping or looking through confidential files. The main risk they faced here was that Aurors were trained to be very good at noticing when something wasn't right, and neither Martin, nor Roger, had a burning desire to find themselves in the wizard prison of Azkaban.

Thankfully, Selwyn and Athena seemed to be having much more luck. They had somehow managed to find a way to work around the archives very strict privacy wards and were slowly building up a portfolio of possible Death Eaters and where they could be found. The most startling thing they had found in the two weeks they had been there had been the sheer number of ex-Death Eaters that were currently walking free in Wizarding society. In fact, a great many of them were in positions of extreme power despite their criminal pasts.

When Athena had first raised this to their attention the whole group, barring Selwyn, had believed it to show how stupid the magical judicial system was. However the squib had informed them that it was actually a very good judicial system; provided you were a pureblood. This had caused a great deal of anger from the rest of the team as they got to grips with the level of corruption within the Ministry, something that Athena and Selwyn were discovering more evidence of everyday.

As far as finding targets was concerned, Athena had decided that only a high ranking Death Eater would do. The problem with this was that they had absolutely no idea who the highest ranking Death Eaters were. Martin, in a moment of what he considered brilliance, had the idea that the Death Eaters with the highest rank in Wizarding society would most likely be the highest ranking Death Eaters. So it was that Athena and Selwyn started their covert search for Death Eaters amongst the social elite, something that they were all sure the Aurors should be doing anyway, but were either not allowed, or too lazy to do.

Martin was half way through his Wednesday on his third week when he first found out something useful. He had received one of those pesky little paper airplane memos telling him to deliver a package to one Kingsley Shacklebolt in the Auror office. The thing he found most irritating about memos from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was the fact that he had to take seven flights of stairs just to get there; a task that took the best part of ten minutes.

Running up the stairs, package in hand, Martin rued the fact that the storage facility and couriers offices hadn't been placed in a central location. He also wished a slow, painful Death on Mr Parkinson for putting him here. As he finally reached the top of the final staircase, thankfully his good physical condition meant he wasn't out of breath; he headed straight to where Kingsley's office was. The door to the office was slightly ajar and the tall black man Martin knew to be Kingsley was talking to the older ginger from the joke shop a few weeks ago. Drastically slowing his pace, he swiftly switched his earpiece to 'eavesdrop mode', which worked sort of like a long distance hearing aide, hoping to catch a bit of their conversation before they noticed his approach.

"We're still looking, Arthur," came Kingsley's amplified whisper, "we've yet to find anyone acting suspicious enough to warrant an investigation."

"But you brought us the news of the muggles months ago," Arthur replied. "They must have made a move by now; they're probably masquerading as wizards to avoid detection."

"I thought so too, however our informants in the Leakey Cauldron haven't told us of anything out of the ordinary."

"Surely you can think of something?" the redhead asked in desperation. "Bill's driving me spare with his insistence we should be taking down the Death Eaters permanently. I'm sure that Molly would tell him to leave home if she wasn't so terrified of something happening to him away from the burrow."

"I've got my ear to the ground, Arthur. I think we're going to have to wait until they make the first move though." Kingsley looked thoughtful for a moment, "how about I come see Bill? I'm sure Tonks and I can cheer him up."

"Sounds like a plan," mumbled Arthur, just as he turned around and looked straight at where Martin was walking towards them, seemingly looking for the right office. "Ah, Kingsley, your package is here."

Martin suddenly changed pace as he pretended to realise where he was headed, and walked up to the two wizards, flashing them a quick 'thank you' smile as he handed Kingsley the package. He then turned around and headed straight back the way he had come from, running over what he had just heard in his mind. _So some of the wizard's know we're coming,_ he thought to himself, trying to figure out where he had seen Kingsley's face before,_ they're probably the 'good guys' as I've seen Hermione with the redheaded one_.

So lost was he in his thoughts that he almost didn't notice as he walked straight into the deputy head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, knocking the main straight into the wall.

"Damn it, sorry Mr Yaxley," Martin turned and called to the other man as he continued heading for the stairs. The other man looked up at him with an angry snarl and looked him dead in the eye; in that moment Martin felt a buzzing in the back of his head as a load of memories sprang up from the recesses of his mind. _Oh shit!_

The look of anger swiftly reversed into a predatory smirk as Yaxley pushed off the wall and started walking right towards the retreating Martin. Stepping up his pace, Martin decided to walk across Level three so that he could use the office windows to figure out how far behind him Yaxley was; it turned out to be about fifteen meters, the long haired man was trying to move in a way that didn't garner much attention. _Bollocks, the bastard's stalking me!_ Martin deduced that his pursuer was most likely a Death Eater, intent on having some sort of twisted fun with the muggle he had just discovered.

Martin kicked up his pace again as he reached the staircase on the other side of Level three and started running down them. During his decent he flicked on the open channel to call for backup. "Got a hostile on my six," he said in as calm a voice as he could manage while running down the stairs, above he could hear Yaxley running after him. "I repeat; I've got a hostile on my six. I'm heading down the eastern staircase towards the courier offices. Requesting backup."

"Acknowledged," came Roger's voice, "lead him to the toilets by the Gobstones Society office on level seven, they should be empty. I'll get there ASAP."

"Hurry up," Martin said urgently as he pushed open the doors to Level seven, he then sprinted towards the toilets, hearing Yaxley slam the doors open just as he reached the toilets.

Inside he went straight to the back wall, pulled out his silenced pistol, and aimed it at the door. Only mere seconds later the door opened again, seemingly of its own volition.

"Shit!" Martin swore as he realised that Yaxley had made himself invisible. He fired of a couple of shots straight in front of him just as he heard his opponent cry "_Protego!_"

The shots impacted harmlessly against the magical shield, the bullets bouncing back against the floor. Martin had only a split second of disbelief before Yaxley retaliated, "_Expelliarmus!_"

Martin's pistol was wrenched from his hand and went flying across the room, where it was caught by an invisible hand. At that moment Yaxley removed the invisibility spell and looked Martin dead in the eye, his own eyes gleaming with a sort of savage pleasure.

"Did you honestly think that you're primitive muggle weapon would be any match against the power of magic?" Yaxley spoke mockingly, as he tossed the pistol to the floor. "Such a wretched creature as you should be in awe of the power you see before you!"

Martin, only raised an eyebrow, hoping to get the man to continue his little monologue, as he surreptitiously moved his hand towards his concealed knife.

"Soon," Yaxley continued, eyes gleaming with fanatical glee, "your kind will bow before me and my brethren, and you will be put in your rightful place, serving your superiors, no longer polluting the world with your muggle filth." The man seemed to be working himself up, aiming for more heightened senses for the kill. Martin gripped his dagger."

With a flick of his wand, Yaxley cried "_Crucio!"_ as Martin dodged to the side and threw his dagger straight at the crazed Wizard. Yaxley also managed to dodge but that gave Martin the chance to close the gap between them, running full pelt towards his enemy.

"_Avada Ked-_" Yaxleys words were cut off as Martin reached him, palming the wand out of the way and using his forward momentum to deliver a powerful blow to the wizard's jaw with his elbow. The crunching of the man's jaw breaking and the subsequent scream replaced the noise of his voice uttering the killing curse. From there, Martin punched him in the Solar Plexus, driving the breath from his foe. This was followed by a precise kick to the man's kneecap, dislocating the joint and forcing him to the ground.

Breathing hard, Martin put his arms around Yaxley's head and caught a glimpse of the man's terrified eyes as he realised what was coming next. In a swift motion he twisted his arms back, hearing the snap as Yaxley's neck broke, ending his life.

As soon as he heard the snap, Martin dropped straight to the floor, gasping for breath. He looked down at the lifeless body in front of him and only just managed to hold his lunch in. This had been the first time he'd ever killed a man. Nothing in his MI5 training had truly prepared him for this. During the brief fight, he had acted almost out of instinct; the combat techniques had been figuratively drilled into his mind, so that he acted without hesitation when he saw his opening. But now that he'd won, all he could do was think about the life that he'd just taken.

With what felt like agonizing slowness, he managed to get to his feet and retrieve his pistol. He then lost himself again just staring at Yaxley's broken body, unable to move from the conflicting feelings of guilt from killing, and the buried joy from surviving. He knew he should have had a combat high, as the chemicals that allowed him to perform in the fight had heightened his reactions and senses as he had fought Yaxley, however that seemed to have dissipated the moment he heard the man's neck snap.

He stood there, staring blankly, for a few more moments, that is, until the door slammed open. Turning, Martin expected to see Roger arriving on the scene, unfortunately, the person who had just entered was in fact one of the blue robed security guards, who was looking with wide eyed fury between Martin and Yaxley's corpse.

Seeing the man lifting his wand, Martin too raised his arm, aiming to shoot the man dead before he could cast a spell.

"_Ventus!_" the man shouted before Martin could pull the trigger. The powerful blast of air issued from the wand sent Martin slamming into the wall, his head smashing back against the hard stones. As he slid down the wall the room seemed to blur around him as his head throbbed in agony. Yet he was still able to make out the blurry form of the security wizard as he raised his wand, a second spell on his lips, when suddenly the man cried out as blood spurted from his chest.

The next thing he saw was a much larger man pulling up, looking at him. He vaguely recognised the hazy voice of Roger as the man swore and started picking up used bullets, casings, and Martin's knife from the floor. It was at that point that he finally blacked out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I still own nothing. No need to rub it in with every chapter!

**Chapter Five – The Magical Causality Phenomenon**

Kingsley walked around the crime scene once more. It had been nearly three hours since he had received an urgent memo, telling him to get a team down to the level seven toilets outside the Gobstones Society. His initial reaction upon entering the toilet had been one of shock; there right in front of him laid the body of one of Voldemort's most senior Death Eaters, alongside Yaxley's battered corpse, the body of one of the Ministry's security wizards lay in a pool of blood.

The first thing he had done was to order his Aurors to secure this level of the ministry and start taking statements from anyone who may have seen anything happen. He had then personally questioned the wizard who had sent the memo, a maintenance wizard by the name of Reginald Cattermole. His questioning had turned up little in the way of leads; Cattermole had stumbled upon the corpses during a routine toilet inspection, he had then immediately sent the memo to Kingsley.

The next stage had been to investigate the crime scene. For that task he had reserved Nymphadora Tonks and Eustace Williamson, both of whom had started combing the area for evidence while Kingsley had been talking to Cattermole. When Kingsley had joined them, he had immediately started to work on finding out what spells had been cast. However, he had quickly realised that they would need to ask the Unspeakables for help on this, as for some reason there was very little residual magic in the area.

Once the Unspeakables arrived, they immediately set up loads of strange looking equipment that gave off seemingly random noises and flashes of light. Giving the Unspeakables free reign in the room turned out to have been somewhat of a mistake for Kingsley, as he and the other two Aurors were able to do nothing but walk around the room, monitoring the progress being made and carefully avoiding getting in the way.

"So what do you think it'll be?" Williamson asked the other Aurors, referring to the cause of death on the two dead men.

"It's got to be a repeated bludgeoning curse on Yaxley," Tonks replied smoothly, "and a double piercing curse for the other guy."

"It looks more like Yaxley was beaten to death by hand" Kingsley laid down his opinion. The looks of mild disbelief shot his way by Tonks and Williamson showed how unlikely they believed it was for someone to take on an experienced wizard like Yaxley in hand to hand combat and not get their face cursed off. "But I agree with your assessment on the second casualty."

A short while later, the Unspeakables were starting to pack up their strange equipment, one of them headed over to fill Kingsley in on their findings. "Auror Shacklebolt. We've concluded our analysis of the residual magic in the area as well as cross referencing this with the results of a Prior Incantato search. Our analysis of the bilateral convergence as well as the magical causality phenomenon…" Kingsley zoned out while the Unspeakable prattled on about his technical mumbo-jumbo, up until the point where the man said the part he was waiting for.

"… and that despite the fact that both victims used their wands against their assailants, no magical signature or residual magic could be found belonging to anyone other than the two men we have here," the Unspeakable concluded with a confused sort of not.

"So we don't know what killed these men?" Kingsley summarised, annoyed that the Unspeakable hadn't just said that to begin with.

"Well. Umm," the man glanced nervously at Kingsley's stern countenance (he could be pretty scary when he wanted to be), "no."

"Very well," Kingsley turned away from the man, effectively dismissing him from the scene. He then looked at the two Aurors still with him, "Tonks, I want you to do a Prior Incantato check on Yaxley. Williamson, you're doing the same on our other victim. I want to find out what they were doing in here and to draw up some likely scenarios."

The two Aurors quickly went about their tasks while Kingsley did his own residual magic check, while much less thorough than the Unspeakable's method of doing things, it still gave him the information he needed; that being that someone had used a highly dark curse in this room, and judging by the fact that only the magical signatures of Yaxley and the security wizard had been found, it was most likely that Yaxley was the caster.

A short while later, Tonks came to his side to confirm his suspicions, "Well then," she said as she stepped up to give her report. "The last spell Yaxley cast was a Cruciatus curse. Judging by the fact he's now dead, I'm guessing he missed." Tonk's deadpanned that entire sentence, though Kingsley could see a slight upwards tilt to her lips as she said the last part; like him, she was more than happy to see Yaxley put down.

"Before that he'd cast a shielding charm and a disarming charm, in that order," she gave Kingsley a moment to inject his own thoughts on that, however he merely raised an eyebrow at her, wanting her thoughts on the matter. "Fine then," she huffed, "this clearly shows that he was attacked, and that his shield charm successfully blocked whatever was thrown at him, also, the disarming charm seems to have been successful."

She paused for breath before continuing once more, "Because of this it seems most likely that his opponent had either a spare wand, or backup." Kingsley nodded along, agreeing with her assessment of the situation so far. "But get this," Tonks suddenly said, with a mischievous smirk, trust her to hold back some useful information just for dramatic effect, "Yaxley was disillusioned when he entered the room."

Kingsley's eyes widened at the implications, "But that means-"

"Exactly," she cut him off, "Yaxley was following someone, I mean, why else would he even be on level seven. What we need to find out now is why he'd follow someone."

"Which will lead us right too who he was after." Kingsley glanced back at Williamson, who was busy inspecting the two wounds on the security wizard. He then turned back to Tonks, giving her a significant look that conveyed that they would talk further on this later. "Williamson," he moved over to the other male Auror, "what have we got?"

The other Auror didn't bother standing up to give his report; he instead remained examining the man's wounds. "The only spell he used in this room was the _Ventus_ charm. Most likely successful as his injuries and the blood splatter clearly indicate that he was hit from behind. So chances are that the killer is different from whoever took out Yaxley. It begs the question of what happened to the first guy," he then stood up and looked at his companions, "only thing for sure is that he was taken down with a piercing curse, nothing else would produce this kind of damage."

"Understood," Kingsley said, although something had just clicked into place in his mind, however he decided to hold onto it for now. "Let's get these two moved to the morgue. Then it's off to fill in the case notes."

"What should we put Yaxley's cause of death as?" asked Tonks.

"Put him down as a broken neck, most likely from overexposure to a bludgeoning curse."

"Yes, sir," she replied, before turning on her heel and walking back towards the Auror offices, closely followed by Williamson. Kingsley quickly sent a memo to the clean-up team and the morgue, telling them that he was done. He then went as quickly as he could to his office, where once inside, he locked the door with a powerful charm and went straight to his communication only Floo station.

"Albus Dumbledore!" he called clearly as he threw a pinch of Floo powder onto the small fireplace before sticking his head straight in. When he looked out the other side, he saw himself in the headmaster's office, with the aged man sitting at his desk. He coughed loudly to gain the man's attention.

"Ah, Kingsley," Dumbledore turned to face him with a genial smile on his face, "to what do I owe this most unexpected pleasure?"

"Something has come up," the Auror replied cryptically, "you need to call a meeting, tonight." He then pulled his head straight out of the fire, not wanting to risk someone thinking it was suspicious that he'd locked his office door to contact Hogwarts. As he left, he saw a somewhat puzzled look cross the headmaster's face.

…~oOo~…

Tap tap tap. _Where is that infernal tapping noise coming from_?

Tap tap tap. _Can't someone shut that tapping up_?!

Tap tap tap. "Argh!" Martin sat up with a groan and looked, bleary eyed, around the confines of the room, searching for the source of the diabolical racket. As his eyes started to focus in, he locked onto a person sitting on a bed not far from him, happily tapping away on a laptop. Pulling off his shoe, he took aim and had just started his throw when he was clearheaded enough to recognise the figure as Athena. Swiftly adjusting his aim, he instead threw his shoe at Selwyn, who sat on a double bed not far away from her.

"Son of a bitch!" he exclaimed in shock as the shoe collided with the side of his head. He looked up at Martin, rubbing the side of his head and looking somewhat disorientated, while Roger laughed deeply from the other side of the room. "What the hell was that for?" he demanded of the younger man.

"My shoe finds your face offensive," Martin replied with a grin. "That aside, how the hell did I get back here?" looking around, he found himself to be back on his bed in the rented room above the Leaky Cauldron.

"Once I'd finished clearing the area of any forensics – bullets, shell casings and the likes – I carried you down to the storage area," Roger explained, "no one noticed me because, let's face it, we're the only ones who use the stairs." Martin nodded along, completely able to believe the laziness of wizards _well they never have to do anything that doesn't require a flick of a wand_. "Once down there I blew up one of the crates and said you were knocked out by the blast."

"How'd you blow up a crate?"

"Made a bomb," Roger replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "anyway, from there all I had to do was get you to the Floo station and send you back here. Easy as pie."

"Urgh! You know I hate traveling by Floo," Martin groaned out. It was true, he really did hate the floo network, the loss of balance after arriving in a fireplace always had him falling over, the first time he had nearly been sick from the whole experience. Like not using the stairs, Martin assumed that this loathsome form of travel came about simply because wizards were too lazy to do anything requiring effort.

"Anyway," he continued, "how did you manage to get past security with such a crap answer? Surely they were on alert after what happened in that bathroom."

Roger let out a light chuckle, "You'd think so, yeah. But nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary until one of the maintenance crew found the bodies on his toilet inspection. Of course, by that time I'd already got you back here."

"You should have heard some of the stuff people were saying about the murders," Selwyn interjected, "one secretary by us was telling anyone that would listen that You-Know-Who had infiltrated the ministry just so he could kill Yaxley for not joining the Death Eaters."

"I wish!" said Martin, "then I wouldn't have had to deal with the bugger."

"The stuff these people come up with," Roger shook his head in mock desperation. "When I was delivering a package to level four the guy I was giving the package too told me – in strictest confidence mind – that, in fact, the two victims had been lovers and they had ended up committing suicide together rather than have to face their family's disapproval."

"To be honest," Selwyn spoke up again, "that one sounds much more likely. Homosexuality is still pretty much forbidden in the Magical world, most consider it an affront against nature."

"Really?" asked Martin and Roger in unison, even Athena had looked up in surprise for a moment.

"Yeah," replied Selwyn, with a slight frown. "For starters, you've got to remember how backwards the Magical world is, it's a good few hundred years behind the muggle world in many ways. Then you have to think about how small the wizard world is, wizards are, on the whole, expected to get married and reproduce, ensuring the continuation of the Wizard race. Then with purebloods there's the whole family honour crap. All in all, being openly gay is a sure-fire way to getting yourself disowned."

"Wow, that's fucked up," Martin summed up for them.

"Indeed it is. Come to think of it, I don't think I know of a single wizard or witch who is openly homosexual."

It was at that point that Athena decided to close off that line of discussion, "Interesting as this is," she said as she stood up from her bed, "but we have slightly more pressing issues to discuss than Wizarding homophobia."

The others simply looked at her, the three of them knowing well enough that it's best to listen when Athena decides to talk. "As you know, Selwyn and I have been using our time in the archives to try and find possible targets for our mission. However, through our research we have discovered that the majority of Death Eaters will be almost impossible for us to eliminate covertly while they are in the ministry."

"We managed to take one out without being noticed," Martin pointed out, nodding towards Roger.

"And as a result the Ministry will be tightening security and the Death Eaters will be on guard," she replied waspishly. She then paused for a moment to allow herself to calm down from her annoyance at being interrupted before continuing, "Regardless, I have been forced to review different places we would be able to perform a hit. As wizards are able to use the Floo network or apparition for instantaneous departure and arrival, taking them out during a journey will be near impossible."

"Then what do you propose?" Martin interrupted again, "Do you think we could just poison their morning pumpkin juice or something?" this earned him a glare from Athena.

"Don't be stupid," she rebuked him. "There are all sorts of detection charms to prevent that sort of thing from happening. There are only two ways I can think of that will allow us to perform the hit without too much risk of detection. The first is sniper hits in Diagon Alley, the second, take them out in their homes."

"But a sniper hit in Diagon Alley will reveal muggle involvement," Roger was swift to point out.

"And the Death Eaters will have warded their homes against attacks such as this," added Selwyn, "hell; I think _every_ wizard has at least got a malicious intent ward active. I wouldn't fancy our chances of getting to any Death Eater's house unscathed."

"Plus, once we do the first hit in a Death Eater's house the other's will soon wise up and take measures to stop it from happening again," Martin concluded.

"I know," replied Athena with a smug smile, "and I've thought of a way to work around this."

_Ah, does she have to go through with the dramatic pause?_ "Do tell," Martin said sardonically, "the suspense is killing me."

"Selwyn," she suddenly turned to the older man, "how do wards work within families?"

"Immediate family members of the head of house are allowed unlimited access to the family's properties and can also bring in guests if they so wish. For people outside of the family to be allowed access without being invited as a guest, the head of house has to key them into the wards," he replied. "Why do you ask – oh…"

"And is it possible to prevent a family member from having access to the properties?" Athena continued her questioning.

"Yes," the man replied in a distracted manner, a contemplative look on his face, "but you have to do a blood ritual, a ritual which was never performed on me…"

"So are you able to give us access to the Selwyn family home?"

"Hold on a second there!" Martin jumped up, "you can't seriously be asking him to bring us into his old home to kill his family, that's ridiculous!"

"Not his family, Mr Granger," Athena replied acidly, "just his father, a confirmed Death Eater."

"Even so," Martin persisted, "you're asking him to sign his own father's death warrant!"

"He signed that the moment he took up with Lord Voldemort."

"I'll do it," Selwyn suddenly spoke up, his voice much quieter than usual. "I can get you there, but on one condition." He looked around them, making sure that they were listening to what he said next. "I want to be the one to kill him myself."

Martin almost fell over in shock at those words, "What. The. Fu-"

"That bastard ruined my life!" Selwyn shouted, leaping up from where he was sitting, his face red with a mix of anger and anguish at his memories "he cast me away from the only family I'd ever known. Left me to fend for myself in a world I knew nothing about. He didn't care if I lived or if I died, to him I was just an embarrassment to the family, worse than a common muggle!" he allowed himself a moment to catch his breath, panting heavily after the outpour of emotion, "when we get there, I want to look into his eyes as I tell him he's going to die. I want to see the life leave his eyes when I plant a bullet between them!"

With that, Selwyn slumped back down, starring furiously into his hands. Martin couldn't get around the pure hate that Selwyn displayed towards his father. To want to actually kill the man who gave him life. Surely nobody could live with a hate that strong within them.

"That still doesn't explain how we're going to get around the fact that the other Death Eaters' houses will have wards on them," Roger spoke up, interrupting the silence and taking the focus away from Selwyn, "or how we're going to avoid the other Death Eaters taking precautions to avoid the same happening to them."

"I'm glad you mentioned that," Athena said, "as that's exactly what I wanted to go over with you before we turn in for the night." She then checked to make sure that everyone was paying attention, and sure enough; Selwyn had looked up from his contemplations to look at her, some slight interest in his expression.

"When we get our hands on Selwyn's father," she continued, "we force him to tell us the time, date, and location of the next Death Eater meeting, as well as what sort of defences are in place and how we can bypass them."

_So torture him then? This plan is getting worse by the minute._ Martin thought to himself, hoping that Selwyn's father would give into the interrogation quickly. He didn't even want to contemplate what sort of horrors Athena had in mind for the man.

"Once we know how to get in, we'll be able to infiltrate the meeting and kill all those in attendance. I've already requisitioned some explosives that should be adequate for the job." She smiles slightly, presumably enjoying the thought of blowing up all of the enemies in one fell swoop. "Should the explosives fail to eliminate all the targets, it will be easy work for us to move in and take down any survivors."

"Sounds like a good enough plan to me," says Roger once Athena finished talking, "and if we can pull it off properly we'll finish this whole Wizarding war before it's able to get really out of hand."

"Yeah, but you know what they say," Martin interjected, "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

"True," Athena replied, "but if this all goes down according to plan then we won't be making contact with the enemy."

"Fair enough then, I guess the only thing more to ask is how long till we can put the plan into motion?"

At this, Athena gave a small smile, "I'll have smuggled in the explosives by the end of the week, from there, we just need to find the right time."


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own Harry Potter and I'm still not making money off writing this.

**AN:** A nice long chapter for you today! Also we'll be introduced to a new POV character. Don't forget to drop a review if you like it ;D.

**Chapter Six – Nepotism and Bribery**

Kingsley Apparated just outside the Shrieking Shack, feeling as the now familiar wards recognise him as an ally before continuing towards the door. Once there he knocks three times and takes a pace back, as always, to allow the person on guard duty to get a good look at him. This time, he had barely stepped back by the time the door was opened by a very serious looking Molly Weasley.

"Which singer were you leading the manhunt for last year?" she asked, shaking her want slightly at him.

_Singer? What in the name of Merlin is that woman talking about- …oh, it must be that ludicrous article published by the Quibbler_. He smiled serenely at her before calmly announcing, "Stubby Broardman, the lead singer of the Hobgoblins, also known as Sirius Black."

"Excellent," said the dumpy woman, now smiling as she ushered him inside. "Oh, and do tell Remus to come out on time for his shift. He gets terribly wrapped up in these meetings."

"I'll be sure to remind him, Molly." He offered her his most genial smile. Walking through into the meeting room, Kingsley was once again greeted by the voice of Severus Snape as he told the room about the last Death Eater meeting.

"-and the Dark Lord put Yaxley in charge of tailing Pius Thicknesse and altering his documents to best suit our purposes. I believe that in time, Yaxley would have been tasked with placing Thicknesse under the Imperius Curse. However, if what Nymphadora-"

"Tonks," interrupted the diminutive Auror from her seat between Remus and Bill.

Snape sent her a scathing glare, "If what she says is true, then the Dark Lord may well have to alter his plans somewhat. Regardless, he is still trying to manipulate events so that he can orchestrate a mass breakout at Azkaban."

Snape sat down then, giving Kingsley a chance to take his own seat. Looking around the room he noticed that the only people missing were Molly, who was on guard duty, and Albus. _Not like him to be later than me. He must be busy at the castle_.

"Thank Merlin you're here Kingsley," Arthur said, once the Auror sad down, "I'm sure you caught what Severus just said. Do you know what sort of defences are in place at Azkaban?"

"Indeed I do," replied Kingsley, his calm, measured voice somewhat easing the tension in the room. "Since the Minister started his DMLE recruitment drive he has been sending more and more enforcement officers to Azkaban to act as guards, the current total is one guard for every three prisoners. On top of this, he has two Auror squads on the island at all times, one manning the entrance and the other patrolling the perimeter. It would cost Voldemort" – _cue shudder_ – "a sizable amount of his forces to capture the prison."

"But even if he lost a third of his Death Eaters, he'd be able to just replace the ones he lost with those straight out of Azkaban," insisted Arthur.

"True, but I doubt he'd want to risk losing any more of his high ranking Death Eaters on an attack. As Severus said, Yaxley's death will cause considerable damage to whatever plans Voldemort is hatching, when the news hits."

"Speaking of," Moody joined in, "What's all this about Yaxley dying? Tonks wouldn't tell any of us about it other than to say the bugger was dead." The grizzled ex-Auror leaned forward in his chair, fixing both his magical and normal eye onto Kingsley. "So what exactly happened to the scumbag?"

"We're not entirely sure," replied Kingsley, "and I'd like to wait for Dumbledore to arrive before I explain further." He then remembered what Molly had asked of him, "Remus, you should probably go for your shift now."

"Ah yes," the werewolf said as he got up from his position next to Tonks, "thanks for reminding me Kingsley." With that he left to replace Molly.

"That reminds me," Mad eye spoke up, "you didn't hear Remus' progress report," out of the corner of his eye, Kingsley saw Tonks shuffle slightly as a brief look of agitation passed over her face. Come to think of it, she's been looking out of sorts for a while now, her hair a sort of mousy brown colour, lacking its usual vibrant quality. _Maybe it has something to do with Remus... Molly will probably know_.

"As I'm sure you've heard down in the Ministry," Mad-Eye continued, pulling Kingsley from his thoughts, "Fenrir Greyback has been trying to drum up some werewolf support for You-Know-Who."

"I've heard," Kingsley nodded along, "the Minister has several Auror teams trying to infiltrate various werewolf packs. This has, unfortunately, had little success so far."

"Not surprising," continued the ex-Auror, "the more feral ones can smell a wizard a mile off. The only reason we've had any success in finding out what's been going on is because Remus is able to get into some of their haunts."

"So what have we found out then?"

Alastor let out a shot, gruff laugh, "Seems as if old Greyback has much more to him than just the bestial killer. He's been going around the various dens, giving speeches and the like about Voldemort and how he will give werewolves the respect they've been denied for so long. Apparently, he has a bit more to say about how immoral Wizards are," there he let out another laugh, "funny though; I'd never had him pegged for an orator."

"So what are we going to do about it?"

"I'm sure Albus has a plan or two up his sleeve, we just need to wait for the old fart to arrive and-"

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear," came the voice of Albus Dumbledore. The old man strode into the room, the customary twinkle alive in his eyes.

"If you're the devil then I'd hate to know what You-Know-Who is meant to be," quipped Tonks.

"A very good point," Albus said with a smile, "in which case, let me amend my statement to; speak of Albus Dumbledore and he shall appear suddenly and without any warning."

"Sounds good to me," the young Auror grinned.

"Very catchy," said Bill sarcastically, to which the headmaster only laughed.

"But I'm afraid my interruption may have pulled our attention away from the matter at hand," said the old man as he took his seat. "It seems as if we must fathom out a way to prevent the werewolves from siding with Lord Voldemort."

"Just how long were you listening in before announcing yourself?" asked Kingsley.

"Only about a minute or so," replied the headmaster, "but Remus told me all about the werewolves yesterday, so I'm already in the know."

"Which also means you've had time to come up with a plan," Alastor put in.

"Or three," added Kingsley with a wry grin.

"Indeed," Albus leaned forwards slightly in his chair, leaning his elbows on his knees and linking his fingers. "However I've only been able to come up with one solution to this furry little problem." _I wonder if that was a dig at Remus?_ "We will have to apprehend Fenrir Greyback," the headmaster concluded.

"What?" blurted out Mad-Eye, in shock, "and how in the name of Merlin do you propose we do that? You know perfectly well as the rest of us that Greyback is harder to find than Snape on a bath night!"

"I resent that!" was Snape's retort. It was, for the most part, ignored.

"Not to mention that if we do find him that we'd have to fight our way through his entire bloody pack," continued Alastor, paying no heed to Snape's interruption. "Then we'd have to take down the beast himself, and need I remind you Dumbledore, werewolves have a resistance to most jinxes, hexes and minor curses."

"I must agree with Alastor on this," added Kingsley, "trying to take down Greyback head-on can only end badly. And even if we catch him, there's not guarantee the werewolves won't still side with Voldemort."

"I know Kingsley," admitted the headmaster gravely, "but it's our only option. With Greyback out of the way, there will be a power vacuum within the werewolf community. The position of alpha male, currently held by Greyback, would be up contested. And who better to be the new voice of reason to the werewolf community than our own Remus Lupin, greatly respected former professor of Hogwarts and upstanding member of the community."

"No offence to Remus," Alastor countered quickly, "but he's seen by most of the community as a dangerous monster. He won't be able to pull off any of that upstanding member twaddle."

"Ah, but compared to most other werewolves," the headmaster replied, "Remus is exactly that. One of their own, he has been able to live amongst Wizards successfully, someone who has been able to find some measure of success within the magical world. They will look up to him as the new future for their community."

"Hold on," Bill suddenly butted in, "why can't you just offer the werewolves something better than Voldemort?" The other members of the order just looked at him, so he continued. "I mean, you're the most politically influential Wizard alive. You're the recently reinstated Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the ICW. Surely you have the power to offer the werewolves a better existence."

Kingsley just shook his head at this. Bill was bright, but he had let to learn of the level of corruption within the cesspit known as wizarding politics. While, yes, Albus held a tremendous amount of power, he had to be very sparing with how he used his political clout, lest he lose the support of the other influential political figureheads. The unfortunate truth was that Albus had to pander to the wants of the pureblood community in order to make any difference in the issues he felt most strongly about.

"Unfortunately, Mr Weasley," Albus responded to the young man's question with a voice of great gravity, "If I am to maintain any influence over the political arena I must ensure that I am not directly linked with anything that the other political heavyweights would consider unacceptable. This regrettably involves me having dealings with the werewolf community."

"So the order has to act as your proxy?" asks Bill.

"In this situation, I'm afraid so." The headmaster bowed his head slightly. Kingsley knew that the aged wizard often confided in Alastor and Minerva that he absolutely despised having to play the manipulator to maintain his political standing.

"What's the point of you having all this power if you can't implement it?" Bill pressed on, "surely you could do more good just leaving it all behind and acting openly. I mean, it's not like your short of people who will follow your guidance regardless."

"You make a very good point William," acquiesced the old wizard. "The only reason I don't just forget about politics is because I don't trust the more radical purebloods, and it should be noted that they have a great deal of power within the Wizengamot, not to put as much anti-muggle and muggleborn legislation that they can get away with into practice. Whenever I find myself questioning this I always remember back to Siruis' Aunt, Araminta Meliflua, and her proposed muggle hunting bill, against which I had to pull a lot of strings to stop it from going through."

It was at this point that Kingsley decided to step in and round off that line of conversation so they could get back to the matter at hand, "The simple fact is, Bill, that our politics are governed by bribery and nepotism. To do any good without bowing to corruption, Albus has to be seen as a paragon of wizarding values, necessitating his removal from situations such as this werewolf problem. Speaking of which, I for one would like to hear Albus' plan for apprehending Greyback…"

"Ah yes, thank you, Kingsley," Dumbledore flashed a smile of gratitude towards the Auror, "because of the secretive nature of the werewolf community, it has become apparent that the only person amongst us that will be able to discover the location of Greyback's den is Remus. Once he has found out as much as he can about where Greyback is staying, we will be able to plan our course of attack so that we can take him down before he draws any more support to Voldemort's cause."

"So once Greyback is in Azkaban, Remus has to become the figurehead for the werewolves," Bill summarised, "I'm sure glad I'm not in his shoes right now."

"That is the essence of it, yes," replied the headmaster, "except we won't be bringing Fenrir to Azkaban."

Silence hung in the room for a moment before the inevitable explosion of noise, shouts of "What?!" and "You can't be serious!" echoed from every mouth. When the outpour of disbelief was finished Dumbledore simply raised his hands for silence before giving his explanation.

"I thought you wouldn't like that," Albus said gravely, "but I have a very good reason for this. As you all know, there are a great many Death Eaters still incarcerated within Azkaban. With the addition of high ranking Death Eaters such as the Lestrange brothers, Antonin Dolohov, and of course Lucius Malfoy. Since the battle at the Department of Mysteries, Voldemort has a large incentive to capture the fortress."

"We discussed this earlier," interrupted Mad-Eye, "Azkaban is well defended, it will cost You-Know-Who greatly to break his followers out."

"I'm afraid I don't share your optimism," replied Dumbledore, "Voldemort has only to order his Dementors to return to the prison, and the defences will be rendered useless. In fact, if it wasn't for the Aurors arriving at the end of the battle in the Department of Mysteries, I would have moved all the Death Eaters we captured to a secure location. We all knew that Voldemort would make an attempt for the prison at some point, after all, a large amount of his followers have been kept there since he was last defeated."

"So what do you propose we do?" asked Arthur, concern showing freely on his face.

"Don't worry Arthur," the old man said kindly, "I don't intend to use the Order's houses to keep Voldemort's followers. Rather, I intend to use my influence to pull a few strings abroad, have them imprisoned in places that Voldemort may not think to look into. And if he does, they'll be spread out enough that he will have to spend a good portion of his forces, and waste a lot of his time, to free them all."

"Good idea," said Alastor, a subtle grin crossing his features "I daresay Grindelwald would appreciate some company in that tower in Nurmengard."

At this, a slight shadow seemed to cross Albus' face, "I daresay he would."

The room was silent for a short while longer, everyone waiting for Dumbledore to bring them onto the next topic of discussion, which he eventually did by simply turning to Kingsley and asking him, "Well then, Kingsley, now that we've got that out of the way, why don't you tell us all the reason you asked me to call this meeting today?"

This raised a few eyebrows, most not having realised that it had been Kingsley that had requested the meeting happen today, the rest of those present realised that it must have something to do with Yaxley's death earlier that day.

"Of course, Albus," Kingsley said calmly before turning to the room at large. "As you are all aware, Yaxley was found dead earlier today. What you do not know, however, is just how Yaxley died." Several people looked slightly confused at this, unsure as to how relevant this was to the war effort, and the rest simply looked intrigued.

"On our official records, Yaxley's death is attributed to a broken neck, which came about as the result of over exposure to a bludgeoning curse, this is backed up by several other injuries he sustained around the time of his death. This includes a dislocated knee cap, broken jaw, and traumatised solar plexus. The man found dead alongside Yaxley was recorded as dying from being struck twice from behind with piercing curses."

A few members winced slightly, especially at the mention of Yaxley's injuries, "The problem is, none of us could find any trace of magic being used that didn't belong to either Yaxley or the security wizard we found." He looked as shock registered on several faces, most notably the Hogwarts professors and Bill, all of whom would have knowledge of the importance of magical signatures. "Even the Unspeakables were unable to find any trace of magic belonging to the killers; their theory is that whoever killed the two men was able to remove any trace of their magic from the scene before leaving."

"Is that even possible?" Bill blurted out, "I mean, all magic leaves behind a signature. Hell, I can even detect traces of wizards who've been dead for thousands of years, even if their spells have worn off, sometimes. How can somebody mask or remove their signature from something as dark as a bludgeoning or piercing curse?"

"Well the Unspeakables seem to think it's possible," replied Kingsley, "which means they'll probably start researching the idea soon, but that isn't what's important." The Auror stopped himself before going down the road of pondering what sort of things they get up to in the Department of Mysteries. "The reason I asked Albus to call this meeting is because I believe Yaxley was killed by muggles."

Silence. Everyone was staring at him, it was rather disconcerting. _So this is what Harry feels like…_

"Do you remember the meeting when we discussed muggles trying to infiltrate the Magical world?" he pressed on. This was met by several nods around the room. "I believe that, despite our best efforts to find them, the muggles have managed to infiltrate the ministry without our knowledge and have started trying to take out the Death Eaters."

"Take it from someone who has lived in the muggle world," Snape interrupted, "no muggle would be able to get into the Magical world unaided, and even then, it would be impossible for them to remain undetected."

"Don't let your prejudice against muggles fool you, Severus," Kingsley retaliated, his voice calm as always, although beneath his calm exterior he was highly annoyed by the potions master's blasé attitude towards the muggles. Then again, if it wasn't for the work he'd done within the muggle Prime Minister's office while protecting him for the Ministry, he may well have never realised just how advanced muggles had become. "There are those amongst them who are trained especially to do this sort of thing."

"I doubt the muggles train people to act as wizards," Snape replied sarcastically.

"No," Kingsley was drawing on his near legendary amount of self-control and patience to avoid raising his voice at the potions master. He believed fully in the idea that keeping calm would allow one to have the best control in any given situation. "But they do have people trained in espionage and assassination. They are professionally trained killers, and their goal is to destroy the Death Eaters."

Snape seemed about to reply when Dumbledore silenced him with a glance. "If what you say is true," Albus started, "then we must find them before Voldemort finds out about their involvement."

Kingsley was surprised at this, last time they had discussed it, Albus had been very much in favour of ignoring the muggles involvement altogether. Either that or Obliviate them so that they didn't end up putting themselves in danger, of course, killing Yaxley now meant they were in too far to get out of this with a simple Obliviation. _So, Albus has recognised that the game has now changed._ Kingsley thought to himself, _he either wants to find the muggles and have them assist the order, or wants to remove the possibility of them killing the Death Eaters._

"Forgive me, Headmaster," Severus' oily voice responded to Dumbledore's words, "but when it was voted upon, most voted for ignoring the presence of the muggles, should they actually manage to infiltrate the magical world."

"They have killed a senior Death Eater," was Albus' simple reply, "when Voldemort realises who did this, he'll be out for blood. It's far better that we remove them from harms path before things escalate. Also, removing them may save other innocents, such as the security wizard who was found along with Yaxley, from getting caught in the cross fire."

"So what should I tell the Dark Lord, when he asks about what the Order knows of Yaxley's death?"

"Say that we know who it was," the headmaster seemed to contemplate for a moment, "but that I am deliberately withholding the information for the time being."

"So, how do you propose we find the muggles?" asked Mad-Eye. The sound of muttered agreements followed his words, clearly the others had no idea how the muggles could have infiltrated the ministry, and as such, had no idea of how to find them.

"I'm sure that Kingsley will be able to track them down," Albus said plainly.

"I'm afraid that will be quite impossible, Albus," Kingsley responded almost immediately, "between my Auror duties at the Ministry and guarding the Prime Minister, I simply don't have the time to track down these muggles. I've already had to pass the Yaxley case off to Williamson, although I think he's resigned himself to it becoming a cold case eventually."

This elicited a slight frown from the Headmaster. "Very well then," he said before turning to Tonks, "Nymphadora-"

"Tonks," she said, almost as if it was an automatic response.

"Do you believe you have the ability to track down these muggles?" he asked, eyes twinkling.

"Well I'm back on rotation in Hogsmeade at the end of next week," she replied speculatively, "but I recon I can catch them before then."

"Excellent! I wish you the very best of luck," the elderly wizard smiled as he stood up from his chair. "Now that that's all dealt with, I really must be getting back to the castle, as must those members of staff that have accompanied us today. As for the rest of you, feel free to mingle and enjoy each other's company while you're here." At this his eyes briefly flicked over Tonks. _Ah, so he's noticed something too. I'd best have a word with her, make sure everything is alright in… well… ensure her personal life isn't interfering with her work… yeah._

So, as the Hogwarts professors made their way to the door, the rest of the Order stood up and small conversations burst out all over the place. Molly and Arthur seemed to be having a sort of argument with Bill about his more radical views on how to deal with Death Eaters (Kingsley was pretty sure that Bill would in fact like to help the muggles take down as many Death Eaters as possible), and Hestia Jones was now deep in conversation with Mad-Eye.

Kingsley moved from his seat and went straight over to where Tonks was standing, glancing at towards the hallway that lead to the front door, where Remus was standing guard. "So," he said as he reached her, "what do you think he meant by that whole 'enjoy each other's company' remark?" he lifted an eyebrow at her.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean, Kingsley," was her disingenuous reply.

"Oh really?" he responded, raising his eyebrow higher (a trick he'd leaned when interrogating Lucius Malfoy), "because from where I'm standing, it seems as if one of the best Aurors to join the force since Mad-Eye left has somehow become side-tracked by the affections, or lack thereof, of a certain werewolf we are mutually acquainted with."

She looked at him askance, her mouth hanging open slightly in disbelief, "How the hell did you find out?" she blurted out.

He smirked back at her, "I made an informed guess," he stroked his chin in mock thought, "and it seems you've just confirmed it."

"You're such an arse," she pouted.

"So what exactly has been going on?" Kingsley asked seriously, all joking aside. He wanted to get to the bottom of what has been putting a downer on his favourite protégé. "I know that something's really affecting you, hell, you haven't been able to morph for a few months. You can trust me, Dora."

"Tonks," she corrected him immediately, although it was more out of habit than genuine annoyance. She really didn't mind it when some people used the name Dora; Kingsley, Mad-Eye, and most likely Remus, were the only people she seemed to accept the name from on the most part, Sirius too had called her by that nickname before his untimely end.

"It's just," she paused for a moment, trying to work out the right way of saying what was on her mind. "I worry about Remus. Now don't get me wrong, I know he can handle himself in a fight, it's just…" she trailed off, clearly uncomfortable with where the conversation was going.

"Go on," Kingsley encouraged softly.

She let out a sigh right before the words came rushing out of her, "He's not like them, Kingsley. He's sophisticated, and kind, and doesn't act like an animal. I'm afraid that if he stays out there much longer, they'll kill him."

"Come on now," he said in as reassuring a manner as he could (which means that it was very reassuring), "you know that not all the werewolves are like Greyback. Remus could well show them that there is an alternative to hiding away from the rest of humanity."

"Bullshit, Kinsley," she replied, a slight bite in her voice, "Dumbledore may have the others fooled, but we've actually dealt with werewolves before, and we know what life's been like for Remus; there's nothing for them here. If they side with us the best that can happen is that at least they won't be associated with the Death Eaters when this is all over. They'll still be unable to find work or lodgings amongst the so called 'respectable' wizards. Their lives will still be worth shit to society."

"I know," he responded slowly, allowing the soothing quality of his voice to wash over her, "but if they side with Voldemort, we won't have the manpower to fight both the Death Eaters and the werewolf packs. We have to keep them separate."

It was at that point that Remus returned from his stint on guard duty. As he headed over towards Kingsley and Tonks, the two Aurors simultaneously decided to close that line of conversation, it was best not to talk too much about the matter in front of Lupin, the man had a tendency to become melancholic when werewolves were brought up too often.

"Kingsley, Dora," the man said with a wide smile as he reached them, "not interrupting anything I hope." Kingsley only just managed to catch the swift flick of Lupin's eyes between the two Aurors. _Ah, so he's interested in her too, and wary of any competition, how interesting_.

"Not at all, Remus," replied the senior Auror, "I was in fact just saying my goodbyes to Nymphadora."

"Tonks."

"Oh, alright," said the werewolf, a slight upwards twitch of the lip showing that he was actually looking forward to spending some time talking to Tonks without anyone else involved in the conversation. "I'll see you at the next meeting then. Take care."

"And yourself," Kingsley replied with a genuine smile. "Oh and Dora," he turned to his subordinate, "try to sort out what's been bothering you, ok? Or else I may have to brainstorm ideas about cheering you up with Molly."

Tonk's face drained of all colour as Kingsley let out a low laugh. "Fuck you, sir," she said in response smiling slightly once she realised he was joking, "see you around."

"See you kid," he replied before turning around and moving off to say his goodbyes to the rest of the Order.

…~oOo~…

The next day saw Nymphadora Tonks return to work, her mind completely focused on one goal; finding the muggles who had killed Yaxley. She knew that Williamson would ask her for assistance, since Kingsley had passed the case off to him because of his already heavy workload. The one thing about all of this that was predetermined was that she wouldn't be telling Williamson about the muggle involvement.

Today, for the first time in months, she'd been able to morph. So today she was going in with her favourite shade of bubblegum pink in a sort of spiky, punk style (but not too extreme). She'd taken Kingsley's words to heart, and had done something to fix the perpetual glumness that had been hanging over her like a raincloud.

She'd kissed Remus. Right there, in front of all the remaining Order members, she was sure Mad-Eye's magical eye was going to pop out with the intensity it seemed to be staring at her following that action. But the way she saw it; they could all go and piss off if they didn't like it, she is one of the most successful Aurors to be admitted onto the force in nearly a decade; and God damn it! If she wants to kiss a man she bloody well will.

Of course, Remus had been momentarily floored by that, he spent what felt like ages just staring at her, wide eyed and open mouthed; to be honest that had been _totally_ unattractive. But then Remus, like any other single man confronted with a good looking young woman, had fallen prey to the heat of the moment and responded with a vigour she wouldn't have expected of the usually reserved man. His kissing could certainly be improved on, but he got bonus points for effort.

After that, they had swiftly moved on to a different setting, one that was much more private than the Order infested Shrieking Shack; Tonk's apartment, to be exact. Upon their arrival, there had been more kissing, a swift bout of undressing, followed by… well _that_ goes without saying. Suffice to say that the two of them finally gave into the unresolved sexual tension that had been brewing between them for so long. Damn, you've got to love hormones.

When she had woken up the morning after, she had shared a simple breakfast with Remus (rice crispies with a glass of smooth orange juice, if you were wondering), and the werewolf had promised her that they would talk about having a relationship once he returned from his mission for the Order. Now, she knew that a lot of other women wouldn't have found the 'We'll talk when I've finished my long-term highly dangerous mission' response at all satisfactory, however, having someone like Remus, who most certainly has a borderline commitment phobia, agree to talk about them having a relationship was simply amazing. And she'd draw as much happiness as she possibly could from that.

And so it was that with a smile on her face, a spring in her step, and as ostentatious a hairdo as she could get away going to work with, that she stepped out of the fireplace in the main atrium and headed straight for where the security wizards were going over everyone entering the ministry with their probity probes.

As usual, she passed through the probity probe inspection with no problem, one of the security wizards actually commented on how much nicer she looked today, which she responded to with a dazzling smile and a mischievous wink. _There's nothing quite like teasing the security wizards_.

Unfortunately there was a somewhat awkward moment during the wand inspection. Now, as well as weighing them, the inspectors had been ordered to do a five spell _Prior Incantato_ check on each wand. The problem came about when it turned out the second to last spell she'd used had been the standard contraceptive charm, eyebrows were raised and she had blushed deeply. The other spells had been simple household ones, such as _Lumos_, _Nox_ and _Accio_.

Once that whole situation had been dealt with, she headed straight to the elevators and to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Once there, she went straight to her office, intending to go over the case notes that she'd filled in about Yaxley, hopefully that would give her some ideas about where to start her search for the illusive muggles.

…~oOo~…

Several hours, three cups of coffee, and a brief discussion about the case with Williamson later, and Tonks still had absolutely nothing. She couldn't for the life of her see any way that a group of muggles would be able to get into the ministry of magic undetected.

The first thing she'd thought of was that they were using the more deserted parts of the ministry to hide in, such as the stairs, unused toilets, and empty court rooms. However, they would have to get past the guards in the atrium in order to do that, so she'd ruled that out.

The second idea she'd had was that they had managed to get their hands on an invisibility cloak and sneak in that way. The only problem was that the ministry guards had all sorts of Dark Detectors that were designed especially to counter that sort of infiltration technique. After that, she had had a spate of progressively unlikely ideas, each one being shot down as quickly as the last. This all resulted in her once cheery mood souring considerably, now, she was irritable and had started snapping at anyone foolish enough to venture into her office.

It was during this angst ridden phase of hers that a small spark of realisation lit up in her brain. _If they didn't sneak past the guards, then they must have been let in_. She bolted upright, her back now ramrod straight against the back of her chair. It was the only explanation, it had to be; there was no other way the muggles could have gotten past the security checks.

Following that line of reasoning, she swiftly came to two possible conclusions; the first, that the muggles were being helped by someone within the ministry. The second is that they were working at the ministry while pretending to be wizards.

Of those two possibilities, she decided that the most likely was the second, as it was unlikely that they would trust any witch or wizard enough to disclose their plan to infiltrate and kill off members of the Magical world. The only question now was how they were managing to keep up the façade without arousing suspicion.

Standing up, she started pacing around the small room she worked from, muttering under her breath as she tried to work out how the muggles had tricked security and just where they might be. In the end, she decided that the best place to find out would be the archives, if she got recruitment information on all recent employees, then she would be able to search out specifically those that did not require the use of a wand, and from there, continue her investigation.

Of course, it would be much easier to just go down to recruitment and ask Reginald Parkinson if he'd spoken to any unusual recruits. The problem there being that the Order was fairly certain that Parkinson was either a Death Eater or a Death Eater sympathiser.

Now that she had a plan, she grabbed her cloak and strode purposefully from her office and straight towards the service desk that fronted the Archives department. The short walk only caused her to stumble twice, _damn this clumsiness!_ Before long she was standing at the service desk and ringing the bell that would call one of the on shift archivists to her.

"How can I help you, Auror Tonks?" asked the archivist, as she walked through the doorway that separated the service desk from the Ministry's carefully kept records. Tonk's eyes flicked over the woman's attire; she was wearing baggy looking robes, concealing her figure, the name tag identifying her as Athena Selmy. _What is it with Purebloods and constellations_?

"Umm, yes," Tonks was unused to making requests from the archivists, usually someone else would do it for her out of fear that she'd fall over and ruin the documents, "I need access to the personnel files on new Ministry employees from the last four months."

Athena's eyebrows lifted slightly before she nodded, "Right away, Auror Tonks." The woman returned a few moments later with a large stack of records. "Please be careful not to misplace any of the documents," she said with a stern look. "Now, you can take those and I'll fill in the log book."

Tonks thanked Athena for her help and started back to her office. _Now it's just a matter of time before I find out where the muggles are hiding_.

She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she failed to notice when Athena deliberately didn't fill in her transaction in the logbook.

…~oOo~…

**AN:** Hey all, along with this chapter I'm putting up a poll, **Which Characters You Least Want to Die.** Make sure to vote so your favourites don't get taken down by muggles/death eaters/werewolves or any other horrific way I can envisage.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make money from writing this.

**AN:** I have recently changed the title of this story from 'Of Magic and Muggles' to 'The Other Granger'. In other news; this chapter has several POV shifts, I hope you can keep up ;D. ALSO, I have now updated all the chapters so far to have section dividers! Thanks to whoever pointed that out for me =)

…~oOo~…

**Chapter Seven – Bugging a Cute Auror**

Martin and Roger where enjoying a short break down in the storage rooms, it was the time of day, just after lunch, that usually saw all the floors and departments fully stocked and all the morning special packages had been delivered.

"So what do you think about Selwyn wanting to Kill his own dad?" Roger asked in between bites from the egg and cress sandwich he had purchased in the canteen.

"Mate," Martin started as soon as he swallowed his mouthful of roast chicken, stuffing and bread, "Fucked up doesn't even cover it."

"I know what you mean!" Roger nodded, "I honestly thought he was going to go ape-shit on Athena when she suggested going after his family. But for him to agree with her… bloody scary."

"His dad abandoning him must have cut him up bad," Martin took a moment to reflect on that train of thought. "You think he could be emotionally unhinged?"

"Hell if I know," Roger replied as he finished his sandwich, "I'm a soldier, not a Psychologist. May as well find something to do until the afternoon packages come in, how about rock-paper-scissors?"

Martin laughed, "You can say that again. I think the word 'emotion' causes some sort of reaction in you." He laughed some more as Roger frowned at him. "But sure, I'm game for rock-paper-scissors."

"Good," Roger grinned as he moved his hand behind his back, "three… two… one!"

The two men pulled their arms from behind their backs at the same time. Martin's completely flat as if going for a Karate-chop while Roger's was bunched into a fist.

"Aha!" Martin called out, "paper covers rock." He then leaned up and slapped Roger across his cheek while the larger man muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'like rock would actually lose to paper.'

The two of them went for a second round, this time Roger's scissors defeating Martin's repeated paper symbol. "Yes!" he called out, "scissors cut paper." He then reached forward and twisted Martin's left nipple painfully.

"Mother-fffffffff… that really hurt!" Martin growled though the pain of his nipple-cripple. "Round three?"

"Bring it on."

This time they drew, both having used rock. This was soon followed by Martin's second rock defeating Roger's scissors. The larger man grimaced as he held his fist forward so that Martin could smash his fist off Roger's knuckles. The resulting grunt of pain reminded Martin of why he NEVER used scissors.

It was just as they were about to go for yet another round, Roger seemingly determined to cause as much physical damage to Martin as he could get away with, that the intercoms in their ears buzzed to life.

"Granger, Bailey," Athena's voice sounded in their ears, "we have a problem." The two men exchanged a worried glance, Roger still with Martin's handprint across his face. "I think one of the Aurors may be onto us."

"Are you certain?" was Martin's immediate reply "how do you know?"

"Not one hundred per cent," she answered, "the Auror in question requested all the personnel files of people hired in the last four months-"

"So within the timeframe of us starting the mission," Roger interrupted.

"Exactly," Athena agreed, "what's more, she's one of the Aurors on the Yaxley case. I think she's playing it close to the chest though, otherwise the other Auror on the case, Williamson I think, would have got the files."

"Why's that?" Martin asked.

"Auror Tonks is far too clumsy to be entrusted with important documents normally."

"Ah, Tonks," Martin nodded in understanding (even though Athena obviously couldn't see him agree). "She's the hot one that's always tripping over, right?"

Athena made an exasperated 'hmph' sound while Roger lifted an eyebrow and nodded his agreement as to the alleged hotness of the young Auror. "That's beside the point," came Athena's frustrated response, "but yes it's her."

"So what do you want us to do about it?" Martin asked. "It'd be a shame to waste such a fine piece of-"

"Don't say it you pig," Athena cut him off. "I'm not saying we need to take her out, yet. I just need you to bug her office so we can tell if we actually have something to worry about or if I'm just blowing things out of proportion."

"We have bugs here?" Roger asked.

"Yeah, I keep our surveillance equipment in my locker on this floor," Martin told him, "always pays to be prepared."

"Fair enough," the big man replied to Martin before flicking back to Athena, "What if she _is_ on to us?"

"Then we'll figure something out," she said as if it was blatantly obvious. "Regardless, I need you two to figure out a way to bug her office ASAP. Athena out." Their earpieces buzzed slightly as Athena disconnected from their channel.

"Right then," said Roger, turning to the younger man, "how the hell are we meant to bug her office?"

Martin just smirked at him (like his sister he sometimes got a kick of knowing more than someone else), "Bugging the room is the easy part, it's just putting microphones and cameras into the office in places she won't see them. The hard part will be making sure she doesn't show up while it's being set up."

"Fair enough," Roger nodded along, not being fully up to speed on methods of surveillance. "So we need to find a way to keep her out of her office while we plant the bugs?"

"Nope," Martin replied with a nasty grin, "_you_ need to find a way of keeping her out of the office while _I_ plant the bugs."

"Drat," Roger deadpanned. He seemed to take a moment to think of a way of getting the young Auror out of the office. Seconds later, he looked up at Martin to say "I've got nothing."

"Nor me," Martin acknowledged grimly. "Come on Roger, we should be able to think of a way to trick one lousy Auror!"

"Hey, don't look at me," Roger smirked at him, "you're the one trained in espionage."

Martin gave him the one finger salute, "Arse. Maybe we can think of something to do with her case, something that'd necessitate her leaving the DMLE on level two." Martin started pacing, trying to think of something that would convince the Auror to get out of the Auror Headquarters.

Looking up from his pacing he noticed a smile spread across Rogers face. "What's got you so smug?" he asked just as the other man jumped up and started rummaging around in the special deliveries section of the storage area.

"I think I've got just the thing," Roger replied as he checked the labels on several parcels. "Here we go!" he pulled one off the shelf.

"I don't get it," said Martin, clueless as to what Roger was getting at.

"We got this parcel last afternoon," the larger man explained, brandishing the package at Martin, "but with me having to whisk you away from that bathroom and all the commotion afterwards I didn't have time to deliver it."

"I still don't get what's got you so excited," Martin folded his arms across his chest, still waiting to be told just what was so important about the package.

"Honestly," Roger rolled his eyes, "it's for Yaxley, you dullard."

"Oh," Martin said, a smile quickly spreading across his face, "and being a good, well intentioned Ministry employee you'll be taking news of the package straight to Auror Tonks."

"Of course," Roger nodded along.

"Excellent," Martin rubbed his hands together as he went to his locker to retrieve the surveillance equipment. "I'm thinking two microphones, two cameras and a GPS transmitter, for in case we need to know where she is in the event we have to take her out."

"You just want to know where she lives," Roger chuckled, using humour to disguise how little he liked the idea of tracking where the young woman went so they could kill her.

"You make me sound like such a pervert," Martin said in a mock-wounded voice as he closed up the locker once he'd retrieved his equipment.

"You are though."

"Am not," he looked at the other man with a slightly hurt expression.

"Don't pull that on me," Roger said, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow, "I've heard you talking about those girls from Cornwall. You're as perverted as they come."

Martin's hurt expression swiftly dropped into a mischievous grin as he answered, "True, but don't go spreading it around. I have a reputation to maintain."

Roger snorted, "Yeah right. Anyway, how the hell did you pull with hair like that?"

"Don't insult the Granger hair!" Martin retaliated, "I'll have you know that this is the secret to my pulling success." He looked for a moment at Roger's disbelieving expression. "Alright it's not, the hair is bloody awful. But even so, don't insult the Granger hair."

"It looks like a birds nest."

"Shut up." And with that, the two of them headed off up the many stairs from the storage area to the DMLE.

The two of them were soon taking up their positions on the second floor of the Ministry, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Martin was delivering the daily box of blood replenishing potions (he still hadn't figured out why the Aurors needed so many) while Roger went racing up to Auror Tonks' door to request her assistance in the most urgent matter of the Yaxley package.

…~oOo~…

Tonks was having a horrible time. She was currently organising her massive pile of files by moving the personnel files into one of two categories; needs to use a wand, and doesn't need to use a wand. Needless to say the needs to use a wand section was much larger than the other pile. Even so, the doesn't need to use a wand file consisted of a good dozen people so far, and she wasn't even half way through the stack of personnel files. From glancing over the job occupations she'd decided that the muggles were most likely masquerading as either receptionists or clerks.

She thumped her head down on the table in frustration, loathing the monotony of her self-appointed task. When she'd thought to look through the personnel files she'd felt like applauding her own genius, now however, she just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep. With a groan she forced herself back to work, picking up the next file: Aquila Selmy, according to the first page of the file he'd been assigned to the Archives. She tossed the folder onto the 'does not need a wand' pile, not bothering to look through the rest of the folder, instead intending to get through all the personnel files before looking in depth into the individual files.

Groaning in frustration once more, she decided to send an owl to Kingsley, asking him for the names of the muggles that he thought had been sent to infiltrate the Magical community. She remembered him telling the Order about it a few months ago but she honestly couldn't remember the names. She then had the letter sent off with one of the department owls.

Returning to her seat, she was just about to pick up the next file when the sound of urgent knocking came from her door. Leaping up she went straight to answer said door and found herself looking up into the face of a very tall, well-built man. His face was red, as if he had been running for the last ten minutes and he was clearly anxious about something.

"Auror Tonks," he said between heavy breaths, "I came as fast as I could." Tonks was filled with a nervous anticipation as the man tried to catch his breath. _Maybe there's been another killing…_

"I was down in the storage area when I found," more heavy breaths, "a package for Mr Yaxley. I didn't want to touch it, just in case."

Tonks' eyes nearly bugged out, although the man was probably thinking she was excited at the possibilities for catching the killers, she was in fact hoping to discover some sort of Death Eater correspondence.

"Come with me," she said as she dashed out of her office towards Williamson's, in her haste forgetting to grab her cloak.

She and the out of breath courier reached Williamson's office and she swiftly went about dragging the man out of the office as they followed the courier down to the storage area.

"A package for Yaxley?" Williamson asked excitedly as they reached the storage area, "do you think it will contain any clues about the killer?"

"I don't know," Tonks replied honestly, "I was thinking it might shed some light on the question of Yaxley's Dark Mark."

"That would be good too," Williamson agreed, "I heard on my way into work today that one of the receptionists has been telling everyone on level five that Yaxley and the security wizard had cornered You-Know-Who in the bathroom and that he'd only just managed to defeat them."

Tonks actually laughed at that. "Yeah right, more like Yaxley was sucking You-Know-Who off in the toilets!"

"No need to be vulgar," Williamson replied with a mock glare.

The two of them were interrupted when large man, who'd identified himself as Roger, pointed them towards a package with Yaxley's name written on it.

"We'd better run a diagnostic on it," Williamson said as he drew his wand, "just to be sure."

"Good idea," she replied as she drew her own wand.

Between the two of them they made short work of checking for anything dangerous within the package or spelled onto the package itself. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, Williamson swiftly ripped open the package, eager to find out what clues could be hiding beneath the brown paper.

"Damn it," Williamson muttered as Tonks burst out laughing, "he could have at least had his PlayWizard subscription sent to his house!"

"Probably didn't want his wife to find out," Tonks managed in between peals of laughter.

"True, but I don't find it funny," Williamson said with a frown, "come on Tonks, won't give us any clues."

Tonks took a few moments longer to laugh over Yaxley's package, thanked the courier who had alerted them on the situation for his help, then turned around to go back up to her office on level two.

…~oOo~…

Martin made his move as soon as Roger got the young Auror to leave her office. He walked purposefully down the corridor and just as he was about to pass her door he darted inside. Looking around he could tell that the young Auror was in no way a clean freak. The filing cabinet was open and random bits of paper seemed to be sticking out from the different sections.

Moving over to her desk he took a moment to look at the personnel files that were lying in three piles on the desk. He recoiled in shock and almost let out a gasp when he saw the names on the front of the files on top of the largest and smallest piles; Athena Selmy and Aquila Selmy respectively.

Pushing his moment of panic aside he realised that she had yet to discover their secret as they hadn't seen any recent change in the Auror office. Deciding that it'd be best to try to avoid detection as much as possible, Martin removed Athena's profile and found his own and Roger's files below. He swiftly took them both out and stuck them in the middle of the medium sized pile before replacing Athena's file. _Can't have the Auror get suspicious now can we_?

With that small task completed he set about attaching a microphone to one of the paperweights on the desk which was shaped like a dragon. From there it took him a further minute or so to calibrate the device before he was able to repeat the process with the second microphone which he placed on the doorframe.

Next he set about installing the cameras, the first he placed on her lamp shade by replacing one of the screws that held the structure together with one of the miniature cameras. Calibrating this took a while longer than it did to calibrate the microphones and he was conscious of how long it was taking to complete his task and he felt nervous sweat dampen his back as he realised the possibility of her returning while he was still there.

The next camera he placed in the corner of the room opposite the door so that as well as seeing any documents with the lampshade camera they could also see anyone who came to talk to the young Auror for whatever reason. This camera too, took a long time to calibrate.

From there he moved over to the cloak that Auror Tonks had left behind when Roger called on her. Pulling out a small scalpel he made a small incision in lining of the cloak into which he was going to put the GPS tracker when Roger's voice sounded in his ear.

"She's on her way back up. Get out of there."

Gritting his teeth Martin resolved to get the GPS tracker in before he left. Sliding the tiny device into the hole he'd created in her robes he set about calibrating it as fast as he could. He worked furiously, trying to align the signal with that of the receiver in the storage department. Roughly half a minute he managed to link it to the receiver and immediately set about connecting the tracker to the satellite coverage it would use to monitor the cloak's position.

Sweat now collecting on his brow and adrenalin building as his heart rate increased Martin pushed himself as hard as he could to focus on the signal. Several agonizing moments later he saw the green flash on his calibration device that showed he'd successfully connected to satellite coverage.

Standing up he swiftly made his way through the door and headed down the corridor, frantically trying to hide his shaking hands from giving him away. Not a moment later than he left office did Aurors Tonks and Williamson turn the corner, the young woman with a mischievous grin on her face while the man scowled at whatever she was saying.

Sighing a breath of relief as they passed him without incident he made his way back to the storage area.

…~oOo~…

"You're a crazy bastard, you know that?" Roger said as Martin walked up to where he was watching the monitor in Martin's locker with the headphones over his head so he could both see and hear what was happening in the office.

"You what now?" Martin asked.

"I saw you on the monitor," he nodded towards the screen, "I told you to get out of there and you still stayed to set up that bloody GPS tracker. I thought she was going to catch you for sure."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Martin replied with a huff.

"You must have got out, what, a second before she got back?"

"Pretty much," Martin acknowledged, "literally just got out the door when she turned the corner. Anyway, enough of my dedication to the job; what's been going on since I bugged the place?"

"Not a fat lot. It's just been Tonks and Williamson discussing Yaxley's porn habits."

"Fair enou- wait, Yaxley's porn habits. What the hell?"

Roger just pointed to the torn up package and the PlayWizard Magazine on the desk. Martin marched straight over to the desk (to search for clues on Yaxley's Death Eater dealings, of course) and immediately starting perusing the magazine.

"Blessed Mary! Look at the pair on her!" he exclaimed as he opened up the centrefold.

"Pervert."

"Shut up."

"Hold it," Roger held up a hand and beckoned Martin over. "She's looking at the files."

Martin rushed over and pulled on a second set of headphones, ready to observe the young Auror and figure out why she needed the personnel files.

…~oOo~…

Tonks closed the door on Williamson once he'd finished venting his frustrations at her. The discovery of Yaxley's secret porn habit had acted as a nice distraction from the monotony of sifting through the Ministry's personnel records, but alas, now she had to return to work.

She sat down at her desk and picked up the next file in the largest pile, Athena Selmy. _Hmm her and Aquila Selmy must be related_. Out loud she said to herself, "Honestly, naming your child Athena. What is it with Purebloods and constellations?"

Receiving no answer from the otherwise unoccupied room she opened the file to the first page and discovered that she, like Aquila Selmy, had been given a job in Archives, "Definitely related then." _Come to think of it, wasn't Athena the one she got these files from_?

Throwing down Athena's file onto the 'does not need a wand' pile she picked up the next file and continued to check the first pages of files, sorting them appropriately, until a chiming sound rang out from her desk and a green light flashed on. "Looks like I've got mail," she smiled to herself as she got up from her desk.

Walking calmly out of her office she went down to the departments post room. Since the change from using inter office owls to the flying airplane memos, all letters to the ministry were rerouted to post rooms for each department where individual employees would be able to collect their letters without the risk of the post owls befouling the Ministry.

When she reached the post room she walked inside and straight into a desk, causing her to lose her balance and fall over. Some light cursing later and Tonks was back on her feet and going over to her post box. Muttering her password, "Charlie Weasley sucks eggs," to unlock the post box, she pulled out the lone letter residing within.

On the front of the envelope she could clearly see Kingsley's tidy writing adorning the front.

_Auror Nymphadora Tonks_

_Auror Headquarters, Department of Magical Law Enforcement_

_Ministry of Magic Level 2_

_Whitehall, London._

Smiling as she pocketed the letter she locked up her post box and headed back to her office, only stumbling once as she made her way down the corridor.

Once inside she went straight over to her desk and sat down to read the letter, decided it was too dark and leaned over to her lamp to turn it on (not knowing that several floors below her Martin Granger was grinning stupidly and trying in vain to get Roger to high-five him over the excellent shot of her cleavage she had just provided them).

Now satisfied that she could read the letter, she quickly tore open the envelope and read the contents of the letter.

_Dora,_

_ Before I tell you anything may I just remind you that muggles _DO NOT_ use post owls and as such I had to Obliviate three of my co-workers when one of the Ministry owls flew into our workspace with a letter addressed to me tied to its leg!_

_Now, on the matter of your request; the four muggles (well it's really three muggles and one squib) are called Roger Bailey, Martin Granger, and Aquila Selwyn. And yes they are related to who you're thinking about. The fourth one had a file that was classified and her ID documents were all blacked out, so I have absolutely no clue as to who she is._

_I hope this is able to help you in some way, though I don't see how myself. They certainly won't be using their actual names to infiltrate the magical world._

_Good luck Dora,_

_Kingsley._

Standing up from her desk again, Tonks began to pace her office, muttering to herself as she tried to think about how these names connected to the people she suspected they were related too.

"Roger Bailey, I think there's an Armando Bailey who was a few years above me in Hogwarts. He's now a support worker at Saint Mungo's now, unless I'm thinking about the wrong guy." She allowed herself a few more minutes to think about whether there were any other Baileys she knew and drew up a blank, _must be his brother then_.

"The Selwyns are an old Pureblood family," she muttered to herself, "so he must be the squib. He'll probably be the best at looking like a wizard, so I'll not focus too much attention on him if I can help it." With that she turned her mind to the last known person in the muggle team.

"Now, Martin Granger," she said with a slight smile, "that's a no brainer to figure out. The only Granger I've ever heard of is Hermione. With any luck they'll look similar and I'll be able to just till him apart from the photos in the files." _Maybe if I check the Ministry library I'll find him_, she thought with a chuckle. She then tried to think of Hermione's most distinguishing physical characteristic in the hopes that they shared it.

"I hope he has the same sort of hair as Hermione," Tonks grinned, "gotta love the girl, but _damn_ does her hair look tricky to manage."

…~oOo~…

Several floors below, Martin was staring at the Auror on the monitor in horror following her mentioning the infamous Granger hair. Next to him, Roger had to hold onto the locker door to prevent himself from falling over laughing.

"I can't believe she made a dig at the hair," Martin said in disbelief. _I know it's difficult to manage, but it's not _that _bad_!

"I think I'm going to wet myself," Roger managed as he doubled over in laugher.

"I hope you do!" Martin spat back. Roger chose that point to fall over in his mirth. "Anyway, I'm going to contact Athena and let her know that Auror Tonks is on to us.

"You do that," Roger said as he pulled himself from the ground "I'm going to deliver the packages we've been neglecting for you to perv over Tonks."

"Oh come on, you know her turning on the lamp was a good moment," with that he flicked his earpiece on, "Hey Athena, got a sit rep for you."

"Report then, Granger," was her reply.

"Tonks is on our trail. She knows all our real names, barring your own of course," sometimes Martin wished he had a cool codename. "She's sorting through the files you gave her in an attempt to catch her out."

"Damn it," Athena sounded pissed off at that, "what's your take on the situation, Granger?"

Martin took a moment to think of how to phrase his reply, deciding on something that would further annoy Athena (but not to the point she would start injuring at) he replied, "As the Yanks say, FUBAR." If the derisive snort that came over his earpiece was anything to go by, he'd successfully antagonized Athena.

"Alright," she said after a few moments, presumably of thought, "we need to act quickly. We'll need to tail her tonight and find a place where we can take her down unseen."

"No need for that," Martin said cockily, "I put a GPS tracker on her cloak while I was bugging her office. We can perform the hit while she's at home."

"Granger!" the happiness in her voice could clearly be heard, startling Martin, "If I didn't think you were a sexist idiot, I could very well almost stomach the thought of kissing you… on the cheek," her reply contained as much of an attempt at humour as Martin had ever heard from her. Roger looked up at him in shock from listening in on his own earpiece.

"Umm… Thanks?" was his unsure reply.

"Alright then, here's what we're going to do," Athena was back to business again, all emotion in her voice having disappeared. _It's a shame that the only time she seems happy is when we're going to kill people_. "We'll go to the Selwyn's manor as soon as we're all off shift. Once that's dealt with, we'll deal with Tonks."

…~oOo~…

**AN:** Mwahahahahaha. So Athena is going after Tonks… What do you guys think of that? IN FACT why not vote on the poll for which characters you least want to die (and rest assured some characters will) Maybe your results could keep our resident clumsy Auror alive… who knows? Oh, and don't forget to review =D.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: **I still don't own Harry Potter or make money by writing this.

**AN:** This chapter WILL contain violence. That said, there WON'T be a torture scene as Martin would definitely NOT want to watch Athena extract information from the elder Selwyn.

**Chapter Eight – Murder Most Foul**

_ "Alright then, here's what we're going to do," Athena was back to business again, all emotion in her voice having disappeared. "We'll go to the Selwyn's manor as soon as we're all off shift. Once that's dealt with, we'll deal with Tonks."_

"Well then," Martin said as Athena cut the connection. "I guess we'd better pack up the monitors in case anyone sees them." He and Roger swiftly turned off the equipment they had been using to watch and listen into Tonk's office and stashed it away in a bag in Martin's locker.

"Right," Martin turned to Roger once the equipment was safely locked away, "now that's been sorted, we'd best get the interrogation kit out of your locker."

"What interrogation kit?" Roger said. _Ah yeah I didn't tell him I'd put it in there_. "And why is it in my locker?"

"Details for another time, I'm afraid," Martin replied with a cheeky grin as he opened up Roger's locker and pulled out a heavy backpack.

"So what's in the 'interrogation kit'?" Roger asked, using air quotes around the words 'interrogation kit.'

Opening up the bag, the two looked inside. Within, they found a heavy looking hammer, bolt cutters, a pair of secateurs, and lots of thick metallic wires, along with this they found something that looked scarily like a medieval thumbscrew.

"Jesus Christ," muttered Roger, going very pale all of a sudden.

"Is that a gimp mask?" Martin asked in disbelief as he rummaged around in the bag, "ah, false alarm, it's just a gag."

"Even so…"

"I know," Martin agreed without needing Roger to finish his train of thought, "Athena doesn't seem to favour the subtle approach."

By the time five o'clock rolled around, they were all prepared. The Ministries courier service never stayed past that time anyway and as such Martin and Roger were leisurely strolling towards the Floo points in the Atrium. The majority of other ministry offices would still be open for at least another hour (with people in senior positions facing the possibility of working up until nine o'clock, after which only the night guards were allowed in the building), so the team would be guaranteed a good hour in which to interrogate the Selwyn patriarch.

Arriving in the Atrium, they found Athena and Selwyn already there waiting for them, the later with a very grumpy look on his face. Athena just looked the same as always; completely indifferent to anyone around her.

"How'd you two manage to get out of the archives before seven?" Martin asked with a grin at Selwyn.

"You bloody well know how!" the older man replied with a snarl, "we've both been given time off because of my alleged 'pixie rash' infection."

"Good thing too," Roger added, "I hear that's highly infectious. Of course you wouldn't want to risk spreading it to other Ministry employee's. It's a good thing it can only affect men though, eh Athena?" Roger finished with a wink at the impassive woman.

"Although," Martin added seriously, "she could well be a carrier."

"I. Hate. You," Selwyn said through gritted teeth.

The two other men had just snickered. They had given Athena the idea of using pixie rash as an excuse for them to get off work early, Roger was quite correct in stating its infectious nature, and Martin was correct that it only affected men.

They had got this useful excuse to skive off work from a rather old book Roger had been reading earlier (_The Moste Common Infections Caused by Magicks upon the Genitalia_), in which they had discovered that the so called pixie rash was 'A moste painful and contagious ailment whereby a bright blue rash covers the male's primary phallus.

Now, neither Roger nor Martin could figure out what it meant by 'primary phallus' but they had decided that whatever it was it would be a great way of getting of getting their squad members out of work a couple of hours early. This coupled with the contagious and highly personal nature of the alleged infection meant that the Ministry's on site Healers wouldn't bother to check the veracity of Selwyn's claims.

"Enough idle chatter," Athena cut through Selwyn's grumbling as well as Martin and Roger's giggling. "Let's get this going. Mission is a go."

With that the four of them each pulled out a pair of supple leather gloves (Wizards may tend to ignore forensic evidence, but it paid to be certain) and checked their silenced pistols as they made their way over to one of the large Atrium fireplaces .

"The Selwyn Patriarch will not leave his office in the Department of Magical Transportation until at least six o'clock," Athena informed them as they took up their positions in the fireplace. "That gives us just under an hour to search the house and remove any threat of detection. Everyone inside the house barring the Selwyn Patriarch is considered expendable."

All standing next to each other in the cramped fireplace Martin felt a sort of excited apprehension about what was about to happen. This would be the first time he truly put his training to the test (he didn't count the Yaxley situation as that had just been bad luck on his part).

He checked his pistol again, making sure that he would encounter no difficulties with it as soon as they arrived, when Selwyn lifted his arm up and spoke clearly, "Selwyn manor," as he threw the Floo powder into the fireplace.

…~oOo~…

Stepping out of the swirling green flames, Martin found himself in an ornate, if not overly large sitting room. Being the last one out he could see the other members of the team had already started clearing the room.

Slumped in a plush armchair was a man who seemed to be of an age with Selwyn, give or take a few years. His shirt was torn at two points on his chest and the blood seeping from the wounds underneath gave evidence to him having been shot. His face was adorned by a look of shock and pain, his eyes rolled up, as if looking towards the point on his forehead where one of Martin's team mates had pointed the gun, placing the shot that would ensure the man's death.

Martin rushed forward to the opposite wall where Roger and Athena were already tearing down the screaming portraits, ending their cries of outrage by stamping their feet through the canvases.

"All house elves, to me!" called out Selwyn as he pulled out his SMG. The room was soon full of the cracking sound as two house elves Apparated in front of Selwyn. Neither was able to comment on the destruction of their home, nor the reappearance of the ostracised son of their master, for as soon as they appeared Selwyn fired point-blank on the diminutive creatures.

"Granger, Bailey," Athena called out when they had destroyed all the portraits in the room, "You two take upstairs, take out any portraits on your way."

"Stairs are to the left," Selwyn called back at them as he took a position by Athena to breach the large double doors to the right of the room.

Martin and Roger turned quickly and burst through a set of double doors to the left, checking the room for any signs of life (of which they found none) before moving across the walls and destroying the shocked paintings. Thankfully, the greatest collection of semi-sentient art seemed to have dwelled in the expansive sitting room and as such they had only to destroy the portraits of two of Selwyn's ancestors before making their way to a grand staircase.

The paintings in this part of the house seemed to focus more on serine landscapes showing trees swaying gently in the breeze. Another thing they were thankful for was that the sitting room seemed to have extensive silencing charms on it (presumable so the elder Selwyn could conduct his nefarious business without being overheard), so the residents of the manor seemed to be so far unaware of the attack.

Bursting through the first room on the left at the top of the staircase, Martin was somewhat relieved to find an empty study with no paintings barring that of a large apple tree. Moving onto the next room, he heard a thump from across the hall, in the room Roger was in.

As soon as he'd ensured his room was clear, Martin rushed across the hall, looking in to find Roger removing bullets from a blood-stained bed, against which leant the corpse of a young man. The man couldn't have been more than a few years older than Martin and his torso was absolutely riddled with bullet holes. The shots seemed to have pierced right the way through his body as Roger was collecting them from the bed behind him.

In the man's hand was clutched a wand, whoever he was he must have acted quickly in an attempt to defend himself. However, bullets can be fired faster than a spell can be spoken.

Realising Roger had the situation under control, Martin turned and continued his search of the upper floor, destroying a further two paintings during his search. Coming up to the last unchecked room, Martin braced himself against the door frame and prepared to burst through.

Upon his entry he immediately had to duck a hastily cast Stunner. His honed reflexes kicking in, he dodged to the other side of the door and fired upon the occupant of the room, a young woman.

"_Protego_!" she cried out just in time to defend herself from Martin's bullets.

He moved to the left, attempting to get an angle that would negate her shield.

In return the girl moved behind a writing desk and threw a Reductor curse at Martin. Again he was able to dodge. The girl clearly hadn't been trained in combat so her aim was sloppy; her wand arm shaking as she stared at him in wide eyed fear.

Martin opened fire again, seeing that her shield had gone down when she cast the curse at him.

She dived to the side with a shriek of pain as one of the bullets burst through her shoulder, and tried in vain to cast another Reductor curse at him, again the spell being dodged.

Surging forward, Martin kicked the girl's wand out of her hand and levelled his pistol at her head.

"Please don't," her voice was barely more than a whisper as she stared up into his eyes, her own wide with fear and glistening with tears. Martin just stood there, watching as she lay shaking in terror on the floor, one of her hands clutching desperately to her bloody shoulder, trying to staunch the bleeding, all the while her eyes were locked pleadingly with his.

Martin put all of his willpower into pulling the trigger. He really did, but he couldn't make himself. He couldn't fire the bullet that would end the defenceless girl's life. And so he stood there, part of him wondering what her name was, and what she had done to deserve to die, the other part of him screaming that it didn't matter and that he had to pull the trigger.

A cough from the doorway caused Martin to jump in shock. Standing there was Roger, a sad look on his face as he watched Martin's internal struggle. The two shared a silent moment of communication. Martin seeing the understanding in Rogers eyes, but also the resolve.

Turning back to the girl, he grimaced apologetically as his finger squeezed the trigger.

…~oOo~…

Tonks sighed out in relief as she put the last file onto the 'needs a wand' pile. _I honestly didn't know the Ministry employed so many people in just four months!_ To be fair to her though, along with Ministry employees, the folders also included people who had been hired by Saint Mungo's as well as the kids who had done intern work over the summer; therefore the amount of folders to go through had been massive.

She glared in annoyance at the final file she had read which pertained to one Blaize Zabini, who had a file about him in just about every major department in the Ministry, all of which he had interned at some point in over the last four months. "The little shit 'as certainly been busy this summer," she grumbled in annoyance.

She decided that now the files were sorted she may as well take the 'does not need a wand' files home and go through them in a more comfortable setting. Leaving the much larger of the two piles behind (the archives had been closed early because of an outbreak of pixie rash) she pulled on her cloak, picked up the files she was taking with her and headed for the lifts.

"How did he even get an internship in the Department of Mysteries anyway?" she grouched to herself, still annoyed at how much time she had wasted with the files on Blaize Zabini.

Thankfully she had just managed to beat the evening rush, so the fireplaces in the Atrium were all but empty. Walking up to the nearest one she tossed down a handful of Floo powder and called out the name of her apartment as the flames turned green around her and she was pulled up through the chimney.

Stepping gracefully out of her fireplace back home, she allowed took pride in the way she had successfully navigated the Floo network without falling out of the fireplace. Then she tripped over the corner of her rug.

A few minutes and several spells later, she was sitting back on the sofa, writing a letter to Kingsley on the coffee table and sipping on a cup of tea (two sugars and semi-skimmed milk).

_Kingsley,_

_ I know you think you have more important things to do. But you don't. Can you come over and help me sort through these files? I think I'm on to something here._

_And before you write back saying you're busy, remember just how much you love me and how you're my favourite mentor/co-worker in the whole world =)._

_Yours Hopefully,_

_Tonks._

_PS. Sorry about the last owl causing problems with the muggles._

_PSS. Sorry if this owl causes problems with the muggles._

Smiling in satisfaction, she walked over to her personal owl, a tiny little thing she had called Smaug, and tied the letter to his leg.

"If he says no, peck him," she told the little owl with a smile as she gave him an owl treat. Smaug simply hooted once he finished the treat and flew out the open window.

Tonks looked over to the clock on the wall as she sat back down and picked up the first folder. "Five to six," she muttered to herself, "I wonder how long it'll take Shacks to get here?"

…~oOo~…

Martin, Roger and Selwyn had just finished cleaning up the wreckage of the sitting room when it reached six o'clock. Athena and Selwyn had purged the ground floor off all its talking paintings and lone living inhabitant, an elderly woman, presumably Selwyn's grandmother.

Having removed the smashed portraits and corpse of Selwyn's older brother, the room didn't look to have anything out of place at first glance. The plan was that the elder Selwyn would not notice anything wrong until Roger and Martin had grabbed him, preventing him from Apparating away from the manor house.

Selwyn himself was sitting on the sofa where his brother had died, staring at the fireplace, clearly intending to scare the living shit out of his dad. Martin had never thought of Selwyn as the type for needless dramatics until now. _Each to his own, I guess_.

Martin and Roger had just taken up positions on either side of the fireplace (unless the Selwyn family had somehow evolved to have 180 degree vision they would remain unnoticed until it was too late) when the flames turned the dazzling green that signified Floo travel.

Out of the flickering fire stepped two people, the first was a man who looked almost exactly like Selwyn but with grey liberally streaked through his otherwise blond hair. The second was a woman that looked to be the same age as Selwyn, she too had blonde hair, though hers fell in thick curls down her back. Both of them stopped and stared at the sight of the man glaring at them from the sofa.

"Aquila?" the woman said in shock as the man stared at his son, mouth hanging open in disbelief. Martin and Roger took this as their cue to sneak up behind the newest arrivals.

"Father," Selwyn's gaze had not left the older man for a second, "It's a shame you brought her with you. She needn't have died."

The two standing Selwyn's eyes widened in a moment of horror as the truth of the situation suddenly hit them. Both went for their wands, but instead found themselves in the vicelike grips of Roger and Martin.

"Unhand us you beasts!" the elder Selwyn cried out as his son stood up and pulled out his pistol.

"Aquila, what are you doing?" his sister shouted as he levelled the barrel between her eyes. Just before the trigger was pulled, she seemed to find the comprehension that the strange device being pointed at her would end her life. A soft 'oh' escaped her lips right before her brain was splattered over the wall.

Martin, who had been holding her from the side, instantly released the body and moved to take the still untouched wand from the pocket of the elder Selwyn's robes.

"What have you done?" asked the man, his voice a hoarse whisper, his wide eyes staring at the body of his daughter.

"What I must, _Father_," he spat out, the final word full of venom. He eyed the older man his eyes filled with an unfathomable hate, "we do what we must to survive. Isn't that the Pureblood creed?"

"You are no Pureblood!" his father screeched back, "and no son of mine!"

"True and true," Selwyn replied with a laugh devoid of any humour. "But I'm afraid we've wasted enough time with our little chat. And I have a good friend who would really like to see you." He then turned and nodded to Roger, the big man then lifted the elder Selwyn off the ground and carried him through to the room where Athena had set up for her interrogation.

"Put her with the others," Selwyn waved a hand at the body of his sister, his eyes still fixed on his father, "Then you and Roger need to keep watch on this room and the entrance hall. They're the only two places into which someone can Apparate here."

With a grimace, Martin set about moving the corpse of Selwyn's sister through to the conservatory, where the corpses and fragments of broken portraits had been stored. On his way back to the sitting room and the comforting silence of its wards he could hear the screams of terror and agony from the room Athena was interrogating the elder Selwyn.

"It gets easier," Martin looked over to find the source of the voice. Roger was standing back in his position by the fireplace, a sad look on his face.

"I don't think I want to get used to being complacent in torture," Martin said tiredly.

"I didn't mean that," Roger said with a wince, "I've never been in this situation either. I'm just a soldier, remember? I was talking about having to kill people."

"How did you deal with it?" Martin asked, only slightly hoping for an answer, most of him was too consumed with the guilt of killing the girl in the bedroom earlier, and holding Selwyn's sister in place so he could shoot her.

"Personally, I just rationalised it away," Roger admitted, "before, I've always been in 'it's me or them' situations."

"That's not much help to me," Martin replied dejectedly, "the people we killed were pretty much defenceless."

"They had wands," Roger reasoned with him, "and if they got to use them on us we'd be as dead as they are now."

"Were not fighting as soldiers now though," Martin threw back, "we could have done things differently. We don't need to kill anyone who isn't a Death Eater!"

"We couldn't have done it differently," Roger replied, shaking his head slightly. "This presented the least risk of discovery. And you know just as well as me, that by doing this, we're saving hundreds, if not thousands of people from suffering at their hands."

"I guess," Martin muttered as he moved to take a position in the entrance hall.

"Does that make you feel any better?"

"No," Martin admitted, "not yet."

…~oOo~…

Tonks looked up from the folder she was reading through at the sound of someone knocking on her door. Jumping up, she drew her wand and looked threw the peep hole. _Kingsley, or at least it looks like Kingsley, best ask him a security question. If Mad-Eye hears about me just letting people in willy-nilly he'll have my guts._

Opening the door a crack, she aimed her wand at the tall black man standing on the staircase outside. He seemed completely unfazed at her pointing a wand at him and even smiled a little at her using proper security protocols. _Definitely Kingsley then._

"What is your favourite kind of jam?" she asked, getting ready to cast a stinging hex on him if he took too long to answer.

"None," he answered straight away in his trademark deep, calm voice, "I hate the stuff. But I'll take plum chutney if there is any."

"Really?" Tonks asked as she opened the door for him, "I always had you pegged for a raspberry fan."

With a sudden flick of his wrist and his perfectly concealed wand, a bolt of light shot forward, wrenching her wand from her grasp as it was sent through the air towards Kingsley. Her eyes widened in shock as he levelled both wands at her.

"What is your natural height?" he asked straight away.

"Five foot four and a half inches," she answered after a moment to think about it.

"I think your giving yourself an extra inch there," Kingsley said with a grin as he tossed her wand back to her. She caught and pocketed it with a deft flick of the wrist.

"Good things come in small packages," she stuck her tongue out at him and walked back into the apartment, "and seriously, why don't you like jam?"

"I just don't," Kingsley said as he closed the door behind him, "besides, you should never ask a security question you don't know the answer to."

Tonks ignored his piece of advice, "but jam and chutney are practically the same thing!" she said with faux exasperation.

"They're really not," Kingsley informed her sagely, "now, let's get to work on this paperwork you called me over to help you with; not that I don't enjoy discussing why chutney is superior to jam."

"Right over here," she said as she poured him a cup of tea (no sugar and fully skimmed milk, Kingsley was a frugal man when it came to tea) and handed him half the stack of remaining folders. "We're looking for people who may have requested positions where wands weren't required."

"So you think they got themselves jobs within the Minsitry?" Kingsley asked her.

"Only thing that made sense," Tonks answered absently as she picked up the folder she had been looking over before Kingsley's arrival, "less talking, more reading."

…~oOo~…

Martin had been standing in corner of the Selwyn manor entrance hall for nearly three hours. Three hours of absolutely nothing happening.

Under normal circumstances, the tedium of doing absolutely nothing for three solid hours while trying to maintain focus on the same room would have gotten to him by now. However, these were not normal circumstances; despite him standing and watching, like he was supposed to do, his brain was working overtime, running over the events leading up to this moment at a feverish pace that had long been believed to only be possible for his sister when she was revising for an exam.

Within his head, he watched over and over again as he pulled the trigger on the defenceless girl shivering pitifully on the floor. Over and over he watched the life leave her eyes. It made him feel physically sick.

He'd tried rationalising it, like Roger had said, but it didn't seem to be working. Sure it had worked for when he'd killed Yaxley, that had been just as Roger had said, it was a textbook 'me or them' scenario, in which the outcome would have resulted in one of them dying.

But the girl… she'd never stood a chance. From the onset, she had been unable to land a successful hit on him. Her aim had been atrocious as her nerves got the better for her. How could he justify ending her life?

"Granger," it was Athena. "We've got what we came for. We're moving out."

Martin followed silently, his movements feeling numb as he continued reflecting on the realities of taking a life.

The four of them used the Floo network to return to the Leaky Cauldron and headed straight up to their room, forgoing the need to eat as none of them felt particularly hungry after the events of that evening.

Once they were all safely upstairs in their shared bedroom, Athena began the debriefing.

"Well then," she began, pacing the room slowly, "it took a while, and some fingers, but he gave in eventually."

Roger grimaced at the thought of what happened to the elder Selwyn. Martin was still only half there, letting Athena's words wash over him as he remained focused on the dead girl in his mind.

"It turns out that the Death Eaters don't have set meeting times or even a set meeting place," she continued, "after repeatedly trying to get him to change his answer to something more useful, the target vigorously maintained that the Dark Lord simply activates the Death Eater's dark marks and they are expected to Apparate straight to him."

"Well that's no use," murmured Selwyn from the bed he was sitting on.

"Indeed," Athena agreed, "however, he did give us one piece of extremely useful information. Namely, the most frequented location for the Death Eater meetings."

Selwyn and Roger looked interested at this. "Apparently, the Dark Lord likes to frequent the home of the Malfoy family, and often uses their dining hall as to hold his counsel."

"So we need to break into Malfoy manor?" asked Selwyn, looking slightly nervous. "They say that's one of the most securely warded places in all of England. Abraxas Malfoy was said to be the most paranoid man in Europe following the war with Grindelwald. My… _Father_, once told me that he'd made his house almost impregnable."

"A good thing that we'll be aborting all the Death Eaters inside then, isn't it?" Athena asked rhetorically, with one of her rare smiles.

"That's a really, _really_ sick metaphor, you know that right?" Roger asked in disgust.

"Regardless," Athena waved off his protest to her choice of language, "we now know what we need to do."

"It's not going to be easy," Selwyn reminded the room at large, "very not easy."

"I heard you the first time," Athena snapped, "anyway; we have other problems to deal with right now, namely the Auror who's trying to track us down from the Ministry's personnel records."

"What are we going to do about it?" Roger asked from the bed he was using as a seat.

"I think me and Granger will pay Miss Tonks a visit," another of her smiles flashed across her face. "Granger, is the GPS tracker linked to any receivers in this room?"

They all turned to Martin, who had not paid the slightest bit of attention to her question.

"Granger!" she shouted at him, shocking him from his contemplations.

"The GPS?" her voice was laced with annoyance.

"Oh, yeah. Hold on a minute." He stood up and pulled a laptop from under his bed. Turning it on he took a couple more minutes to open up a program that should allow him to monitor the GPS from their room. "I just hope the signal booster I left in the ministry is strong enough to let me connect."

After a few minutes and lots of typing commands into his laptop he had finally managed to get a signal on screen. "Here we go. Oh, she's in London, that's good."

"Why's that good?" asked Roger.

"We have really good satellite coverage here," he replied, "I should be able to track her to within ten feet of the location of the GPS tracker. Give me a couple more minutes."

The others just stood around, watching as Martin fiddled around with his laptop until eventually he beckoned them over to show them the approximate location of the GPS tracker.

"It's a five story apartment building. Just ten minutes from the Leaky Cauldron," Martin said as he looked up the area in the nifty directory they had brought with them.

"Come on then, Granger," Athena said as she headed towards the door, "we're the only ones actually trained for assassinations."

"Well I haven't actually been trained in that," Martin admitted as he followed her to the door.

"Infiltration techniques will be good enough for now," she replied, unfazed, "we'll use our SMGs, Tonks will have received combat training, hopefully the two of us can take her down before she has a chance to retaliate."

"SMGs," Martin nodded as they headed out the door, "got it."

…~oOo~…

"I think I have one," Kingsley calmly informed Tonks from the other sofa. He held up the file for her to inspect, "Aquila Selmy. Requested to have a job somewhere where wands would not be required as he is preparing to go to Tibet to study wandless magic."

"Tibet… isn't that in Africa?" Tonks asked, trying to figure out where about the country was located (Tibet wasn't a recognised country in the Magical world, just like the USA and Canada were still ruled by the native tribes).

"It's technically in China," Kingsley informed her, his work in the Prime Minister's office had really broadened his understanding of the muggle world, "although I don't think many Tibetans are happy about that."

"Enough muggle stuff, Shacks," Tonks said in exasperation. _Honestly, where does he get this stuff from? He's like the font of all useless knowledge!_

Kingsley made a 'hmmm' noise as he continued looking through the file. "His picture is the spitting image of Perseus Selwyn," he showed Tonks the picture which was, like he said, the spitting image of the Selwyn patriarch, albeit slightly younger.

"Hold on," Tonks said, remembering that file from earlier, "there's a second Selmy in the pile!" she jumped up and started rummaging around until she found the desired folder. "AHA!" she exclaimed pulling out the file, "Athena Selmy; says she wanted a position with no wands for just the same reason as your guy." She looked at the photo of Athena in the file, "Pfft, doesn't even look like your bloke, Shacks. They're blatantly not related."

"Excellent!" Kingsley had a broad grin on his face, "looks like we have two of our wayward muggles."

"Want to try to find the others?" she asked as she poured them both another cup of tea each, to celebrate finding their quarry, "or should we just catch those two and have them tell us where the other ones are?"

"Keep looking through the files for now," he replied, "then we'll grab the other two tomorrow. We just need to-"

He was cut off by a sudden knocking on the door.

"Who the hell would be calling at this time of night?" Tonks muttered as she walked over to the door, wand in hand. She stumbled slightly as she reached the door, her hand hitting loudly against the wood to steady herself as she looked through the peephole.

What she saw nearly made her drop her wand in shock, for the person on the other side of the door was none other than Athena Selmy.

…~oOo~…

**AN: **Ok readers, now it's getting really important that you review and take part in the poll to help improve Tonks' chances of survival! **So you best get reviewing!** Unless of course you want poor Nymphadora to die (shame on you if you do).

Don't forget to check in next week to find out what happens next!


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